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Post by Belchic on Jun 26, 2011 15:59:35 GMT -5
39. Dinosaur (2000) It’s Disney’s Amazing Animagic. Shortly after the release of “Fantasia 2000” came Disney’s next big animated film, “Dinosaur”. This one was unique compared to all the previous Disney Animated Classics, because unlike the others, this one was fully computer-animated. At first, I thought since the animation in this movie was so different from the others, it didn’t count, but according to Wikipedia, it’s part of the series, so it counts. This movie takes place in the time of the dinosaurs. I remember seeing the theatrical teaser of this film, and at a glance I thought Disney was going to make a remake on “The Land Before Time”, which would actually be pretty awesome if it happened today. So, the movie opens up, oddly enough, with a baby dinosaur about to hatch from his egg, and it goes on this weird migration to another location. Is this sounding familiar? The baby hatches and is adopted by this family of lemurs who name him Aladar. Aladar is raised by the lemurs, and then all these comets come and destroy their old home leaving some family members dead. Now, this is sounding really familiar. So, then they come across this heard of dinosaurs who are migrating to a big, beautiful valley so that they could live in peace and stay away from carnivorous dinosaurs. Okay, I lied. This is not a remake on “The Land Before Time”; it’s a blatant rip off of it! After finally watching this movie all the way through for the first time, I gotta say, as for the animation, I guess they did a really good job trying to make it look as realistic as possible, but other than that, the movie has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. There are more problems with this movie other than being a rip off. For one thing, there are no big actors in the cast, or at least none that I recognize. Also, the characters are not very well-developed; they have no personality or any quality that make them likable. Above all, the movie is loaded with historical inaccuracies. We see creatures in this movie that existed in a time period before the dinosaurs, so they should really be extinct. Also, lemurs did not exist at the same time as the dinosaurs, and if they did, then how did they survive when all the comets killed them off? Overall, this movie is horrible. While I will give them credit for the animation, I still say that it should not be viewed by any Disney fan, especially those who have seen “The Land Before Time”, and unfortunately, this will not be the last time Disney will rip off another animated movie. My Rating: D-
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Post by Belchic on Jun 26, 2011 16:03:06 GMT -5
40. The Emperor’s New Groove (2000) It’s Disney’s Amazing Animagic. Going back to traditional animation, Disney’s next animated movie in its cannon is a film known as “The Emperor’s New Groove”. Since the Renaissance Era is now over, most of the Disney films from now on will be just flat out ridiculous, and this is a fine example of that. The movie stars the emperor of the Incas, Kuzco. Kuzco is voiced by former Saturday Night Live actor, David Spade, who, from what I heard, ran wild when recording his voice for the movie, much like what Robin Williams did in “Aladdin”. Anyway, the plot involves Kuzco who tells his servant, Pacha (voiced by John Goodman), that he is building a summer home. However, Kuzco’s advisor, Yzma, voiced by the late Eartha Kitt, wants to take control of the empire and attempts to poison Kuzco, but she mistakenly transforms him into a llama. Yzma and her henchman, Kronk, then knock Kuzco unconscious and leave him for dead somewhere. After gaining back his consciousness, Kuzco then reunites with Pacha, and the two of them try to get back to their palace before Yzma does so that they could turn Kuzco back to normal and stop Yzma from taking over. Like “Hercules”, this movie’s a bit over the top in terms of ridiculousness, but the only difference is this one is a little more forgivable. The villain is much better, and I got to admit that I actually find David Spade pretty funny. Even though the movie didn’t do extremely well, it was still successful enough to spawn a sequel and a TV series, both of which were completely pointless. My Rating: D
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Post by Belchic on Jun 27, 2011 1:05:16 GMT -5
41. Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) Welcome to Disney’s Amazing Animagic. For their next animated feature, Disney attempted to make something to appeal more to male audiences, and this resulted in one of the most expensive animated films of all time. Released in the summer of 2001, “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” takes place in 1914. We meet this linguist named Milo Thatch, who is voiced by the ever-so-talented Michael J. Fox. He’s been doing some research on the lost city of Atlantis, and has somehow been able to decipher the language, Atlantean, a language that nobody has been able to translate. He’s now determined to go out and find Atlantis. He rounds up a band of archeologists and excavators to help him find the city, but some mutineers want to sabotage the mission for their own profit. Milo and his friends find Atlantis and explore it and meet the people of it to know more about each others’ worlds. A few other familiar voice actors appeared in this movie like Cree Summer, David Ordgen Steirs, Leonard Nimoy, but probably the most surprising voice actor is Jim Varney, and that’s interesting because this was over a year after his death. This sci-fi action flick was another Disney Animated Classic to receive a PG rating. I remember hearing about this movie coming out, and I got so excited that I couldn’t wait to go see it, but it was sadly a disappointment. Believe it or not, Disney was planning to make an attraction based on this movie, and it was set to replace the Submarine Voyage at Disneyland in California, but it never came through since the movie was a big flop. Around the same time as this movie, Dreamworks released a fully-computer animated movie called “Shrek”, which was a massive hit and won an Oscar for best animated feature; since that movie did so well, and “Atlantis” flopped, Michael Eisner was given the impression that people were growing tired of traditional animated movies. Well, I wanted to like this movie but was disappointed by it, but at least I managed to find a few good things about this movie. My Rating: C
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Post by Belchic on Jun 27, 2011 1:06:17 GMT -5
42. Lilo & Stitch (2002) It’s Disney’s Amazing Animagic! Moving on in 2002, Disney makes its next big summer movie, “Lilo & Stitch”. Now, this was quite a unique movie for Disney, as it was another completely original idea, and it had a very interesting advertising campaign. The movie got a lot of mixed reviews, but a lot of people didn’t even bother to go see it because they immediately thought it was going to be terrible. That just didn’t seem fair. You can’t criticize a movie if you haven’t even seen it yet. I wanted to give this movie a chance, and when I finally got around to seeing it, it felt very genuine to me. Anyway, this movie’s about Lilo, a little Hawaiian girl who idolizes Elvis Presley. Lilo hates her life. She lives with her older sister, Nani, due to the fact that their parents were killed in a car crash. Meanwhile, up in outer space, an extraterrestrial scientist named Jumba is put on trial for creating illegal experiments. He then shows his newest experiment, which he named “Experiment 626”. The experiment then escapes and heads to earth, and now Jumba and his sidekick, Agent Pleakley are sent to get it back. The experiment finds itself in a dog pound, where Nani has taken Lilo to find a new puppy. Lilo finds the experiment and wants to own it, so they take it, and Lilo names him Stitch. Now, Stitch is a very entertaining character. In fact, ever since this movie came out, he’s become one of the most popular Disney characters of all time; the last time I heard, he was the third most popular, right under Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh. Now, there were some people who really liked this movie, but others found it as nothing but an excuse not to think. I gotta be flat out honest here; I don’t care what anyone else thinks, but I loved this movie. It touched my heart the same way “The Lion King” did. Sure, it may be one of Disney’s most popular franchises, but at least they’re going easy on it so that people won’t get annoyed by it, unlike what they’ve done with Winnie the Pooh. The movie resulted in becoming a masterpiece, and it even spawned off a cartoon series and a lot of sequels. Overall, “Lilo & Stitch” has definitely earned my recommendation. For all you who are still too reluctant to watch it, believe me, it’s a must-see movie. My Rating: A
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Post by Belchic on Jun 27, 2011 1:09:51 GMT -5
43. Treasure Planet (2002) It’s Disney’s Amazing Animagic! As we’ve seen in our previous episode, Disney’s most recent movie was “Lilo & Stitch”. Since that movie was targeted more towards girls, many would think that Disney’s next animated feature would be geared more towards boys, and knowing Disney, they’re usually more than happy to deliver on this. The movie was “Treasure Planet”, and it was released merely six months after “Lilo & Stitch”. To my surprise, this movie was yet another classic story transformed into something different! Originally, I kinda liked this idea of Disney’s, but now, it’s starting to get on my nerves. This movie is a twist on the story known as “Treasure Island”. The hero of this movie is a boy named Jim Hawkins voiced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. How do I explain this character? Well, judging by his looks and personality, I would say he’s kinda like Aladdin, Hercules, Phoebus, Milo Thatch and John Smith all rolled into one. Talk about a Disney cliché. Anyway, Jim is this teenager/young adult who seeks adventure and is very mischievous. One day, he finds this dying pirate who gives him some kind of map, and then Jim, his mother and a doctor friend of theirs are forced to vacate their own bed & breakfast as it was ambushed by a gang of other pirates looking for the map. Jim and the doctor known as Doctor Doppler look at the map and decide to go out and find Treasure Planet so that they could get some treasure to help rebuild their home. They join this ship of alien and robotic pirates who are also looking for the treasure, but none of the crew trusts Jim in the least. There’s one pirate known as John Silver who is given Jim as his slave, and he’s probably the closest who ever came as a friend to Jim on the crew. John Silver trains him all these skills, which make him a better pirate. The later half of the film takes place on Treasure Planet where they meet a robot named Ben voiced by Martin Short, who has been marooned on the planet and has lost his memory. Ben is introduced really late in the film, but at least he’s in the movie long enough for us to know more about his background story (unlike some Disney characters). If you watch the film carefully, it actually does follow the story of “Treasure Island” very well, I just think it was really unnecessary to make it all futuristic. Overall, if you’re looking for a fun Disney movie for the whole family to enjoy, I definitely don’t recommend this one; it isn’t much like the Disney we all know and love. Not to mention, it also resulted in being Disney’s biggest bomb since “The Black Cauldron” and nearly killed off Disney Animation Studios. My Rating: D+
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Post by Belchic on Jun 27, 2011 1:13:42 GMT -5
44. Brother Bear (2003) It’s Disney’s Amazing Animagic! It’s the middle of 2003, and this is when I hear about Disney’s next animated feature, “Brother Bear”. Now, the title gave me very low expectations as to what it would be about. The only thing that came to my head was the Bernstein Bears. The movie takes place in North America during the post-Ice Age, a time where most animals are standard, yet mammoths are still roaming the earth. We have these three Indian brothers: Sitka, Denahi and Kenai. These three brothers love each other, but don’t always get along with each other. After Kenai’s coming-of-age ceremony, he goes to track down a bear who stole their fish basket. His brothers run off to help him, but Sitka, the oldest, is killed in the battle. Kenai decides to hunt down the bear for killing Sitka. However, angered by his actions, the Great Spirits punish Kenai by transforming him into a bear. He has been advised to go where the lights touch the mountain so that he could change back. As a bear, Kenai can understand what animals are saying, but humans cannot understand him. Gee, does that sound familiar? Some of the animals he meets include these two wise-cracking moose guys named Rutt and Tuke, voiced by SCTV actors, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas. He also comes across this little bear cub named Koda, who strangely reminds me a lot of Simba from “The Lion King”. Koda’s back story is that he lost his mother, but he happens to know where the lights touch the mountain and goes on Kenai’s adventure, but most of the time, Kenai tries to keep Koda’s annoyance to a minimum. However, Denahi thinks that Kenai was killed by the bear, and thinking Kenai is the bear who killed him, he goes out to kill him for revenge. There are some parts where the movie seems to drag; I won’t give away the ending, but I will say that the ending was disappointingly rushed. To my surprise, “Brother Bear” is actually pretty enjoyable. The animation is pretty good, and it has a handful of great songs. The opening song, “Great Spirits”, is performed by Tina Turner, while the rest of the songs were done by Phil Collins, who to the best of my knowledge hasn’t made any new music since this movie. When I watched it the first time, it was actually a lot better than I thought it was going to be. Sure, there are some elements similar to a lot of other Disney movies, but I think a lot of Disney fans, especially fans of the Renaissance Era should check this one out. It’s worth your time. My Rating: A-
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Post by Belchic on Jun 27, 2011 1:18:48 GMT -5
Referring to what I said above about Phil Collins, I found out a few months ago that he's retired from his music career, so I guess you can say that "Brother Bear" was his last hurrah for new music. Anyway, moving on...
45. Home on the Range (2004) It’s Disney’s Amazing Animagic! In 2004, the Disney Company released “Home on the Range”. The main hero of this movie is a cow named Maggie voiced by RoseAnne Barr. And yes, the character has the same personality as the actor. Maggie’s back story is that she was the last cow left on her ranch known as Dixon Ranch, where the villain, Alamida Slim, stole the rest. Maggie’s owner sells her to the owner of a small farm called Patch of Heaven, which has some other animals each with some kind of problem. There are two other cows living on this farm: Grace, a brain-dead, happy-go-lucky cow, and Mrs. Calloway, a real bossy cow. Maggie was a show cow who amazed everyone on Patch of Heaven, except for Mrs. Calloway. The owner of the farm, Pearl, is given three days to pay her bank $750, or else, she’ll have to sell the farm. Maggie decides to ditch the farm to help save it, with the other two cows coming along with her. I guess these three animals of the same species are our heroes who are going to save their farm home. Gee, does THIS sound familiar? These cows are our main characters, but let’s think about who we’ve got here. Two of the cows are against each other, one of which is really bossy, and the third one is just the stuck-in-the-middle, cute, innocent one. Sounds similar to the three fairies from “Sleeping Beauty”, doesn’t it? Anyway, the cows come into town and find out that Alamida Slim is wanted for a $750 reward, this gives Maggie the idea to catch Slim to get revenge on him and…you guessed it…save Patch of Heaven. There’s also this sub-plot of this showoff horse named Buck voiced by Cuba Gooding Jr. who idolizes this bounty hunter named Rico and dreams of being his steed. Oh, and did I mention that Slim has this special power to hypnotize cows by yodeling? Anyway, this film has been judged by many as one of Disney’s worst movies, but I wanted to give it a chance because I thought it looked cute. After watching it for the first time, it didn’t disappoint me too much. Disney’s special touch is in this movie, but it’s kind of hard to find. This isn’t the first time this has happened in a Disney film, but it is probably the first time in a film with a concept that Disney is well-known for. The animation, I’d have to say is cartoon and CG at its finest, and the mine cart simulations make you feel like you’re playing a computer game about roller coasters. Overall, “Home on the Range” is definitely one I would consider one of Disney’s most underrated pieces. It’s not an awesome movie, but it’s forgivable. When this movie was being released, Disney announced that it would be the final animated movie to be done with traditional 2D animation, and all that will follow it would be fully computer-animated. If you don’t believe me, then stay tuned for the next episode. My Rating: C+
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Post by babclayman on Jun 27, 2011 3:32:28 GMT -5
Ah, I can see why you think Dinosaur is bad. As if ripping off someone else's priginal idea was bad enough, but also doing alot of Historical Inaccuracies. And yet, I still wonder why Disney made a ride based on this, of all, movies in Animal Kingdom! o.O
Emperors New Grove wasn't so bad, It did offer it's funny moments and it's random scenes can be played in good effect. So, That's pretty decent.
I read somewhere, Atlantis is on Doug Walker's (Nostalgia Critics) Top 10 Films, he loves, but everyone hates. And I will agree with him, it was a nice little, Jules Verne/Avatar type cross which showed that even the natives were irresponsible with the power they had, so it was balanced...Also...Micheal J. Fox! X3
Still, Seems like good reviews so far, Belchic! =3
Looking forward to seeing more. *Hugs* X3
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Post by RaceFanX on Jun 27, 2011 13:19:45 GMT -5
I always found Atlantis: The Lost Empire highly underrated. It's a great action film that just happens to be a Disney animated movie. It's the kind of adventure that parents wouldn't mind watching with their kids.
Plus as Bab noted it is the last time Michael J. Fox played the lead role in a movie.
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Post by Belchic on Jun 28, 2011 21:56:25 GMT -5
I'm glad you guys are enjoying these reviews. I should be posting the last five pretty soon.
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Post by Belchic on Jun 29, 2011 0:30:47 GMT -5
46. Chicken Little (2005) It’s Disney’s Amazing Animagic! Well, it was a dark time when we animation buffs found out that 2D animation was a thing of the past, and it really showed in Disney’s next big animated feature. Now, if you’ve been on a search for the worst Disney animated movie of all time, then your search has ended; it is “Chicken Little”. When I first heard about this film, I thought it was going to be somewhat similar to the “Chicken Little” featurette that Disney made back in 1943. Boy was I in for a shock. Like the story everyone knows, the movie is about Chicken Little who tells everyone in his town known as Oakey Oaks that the sky is falling, but everyone thinks he’s crazy and doesn’t believe him, including his own father. Chicken Little does everything he can to prove he’s right. Alongside Chicken Little are three other heroes: one is his supposed girlfriend, an ugly duckling named Abby Mallard (voiced by Joan Cusack), another is an oversized paranoid pig named Runt, and the third is a Fish out of Water, who is supposedly the Harpo Marx of the team. This time, the sky really was falling, and on top of that, aliens were invading. Why did Disney screw this up so bad? I mean, come on! Why put aliens into a story like Chicken Little? Just to modernize it, I guess? Could you imagine if they did that to “Peter Pan”? Anyway, the aliens are invading because one of their children was stranded on the Earth, and they’re trying to get him back. Some people like to classify this as a comedy, others classify it as a sci-fi, but I like to classify it as a “what-the-hell-am-I-watching” kind of a movie! Seriously, when I watch it, I have no clue what I’m supposed to be watching. I find Ed Wood’s movies to make more sense than this! I gotta be honest here. I can’t find anything positive to say about this movie. The story, as I said, is totally mixed up and doesn’t follow the story properly. The animation is horrible and not pleasing to the eye. Also, take a look at all the big names used in this movie. Featured in this movie were Patrick Stewart, Wallace Shawn, Catherine O’Hara, Adam West, and not to mention, it was also the swan song for Don Knotts. On top of that, they also got some classic songs performed by big artists like Gloria Gaynor, Diana Ross, R.E.M., Carole King, and even Elton John. I’m sure this movie could be used as a direct insult to any of those names I listed. I remember one of the taglines for this movie was “The end is near”. How very appropriate. More like “the end is here”! “Chicken Little” truly marked the beginning of the end for Disney. My recommendation, stay away from this movie at all costs. It is, hands down, the worst Disney Animated Classic ever! My Rating: F
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Post by Belchic on Jun 29, 2011 0:35:23 GMT -5
47. Meet the Robinsons (2007) It’s Disney’s Amazing Animagic! As we saw in my last part, “Chicken Little” was more than a flop, but it was an embarrassment to all Disney fans. With that said, you would expect the next Disney film to not be much better. Now, we’re in early 2007, and along comes “Meet the Robinsons”. This movie focuses around this orphan boy named Lewis, who has this extremely high I.Q. and wants to try to invent things so that he could change the future. However, all of his inventions turned out to be failures. He then meets this kid named Wilbur Robinson, who’s trying to save him from this dude known as Bowler Hat Guy. Lewis thinks that Wilbur is crazy, and to prove he’s telling the truth, he takes Lewis to the future. Now, the villain, Bowler Hat Guy, is actually someone who’s out to destroy Lewis’ future. He thinks he’s so evil, but in reality, he’s dimwitted. The real villain is his robotic hat, which he calls Doris. There’s a lot of back story within the characters of this movie, but I won’t go into too much detail, as it’ll spoil it for those who haven’t seen it yet. To make it brief, Lewis is introduced to Wilbur’s family, the Robinsons (a family whose last name always makes me think of the Robinsons from “Lost in Space”), and since their time machine was broken, it’s up to Lewis to fix it so that he could see his real mom and go back in time to fix all the mistakes he has made in the past. There aren’t a lot of big voice actors in this movie. There are a couple like Tom Kenny, Tom Selleck, and the surprisingly funny Adam West. Overall, I was actually quite surprised after viewing this for the first time. “Meet the Robinsons” is actually pretty good. Is it a masterpiece? No. I mean it didn’t steal my heart or blow my mind like some Disney movies did, but it’s a fun little movie. It’s a guilty pleasure, more or less. If you’re a Disney fan, I recommend giving this movie a shot, but make sure you watch it all the way through, because it ends with a very special message. My Rating: B-
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Post by Belchic on Jun 29, 2011 0:39:04 GMT -5
48. Bolt (2008) It’s Disney’s Amazing Animagic! In 2008, Disney released Animated Classic #48, “Bolt”. To start things off, this movie was originally planned to be released in 2006 as “American Dog”, which was scrapped, but they later decided to bring it back, and I’m glad they did. Anyway, the movie is about a dog named Bolt who is the star of an action TV series. His owner is this girl named Penny, voiced by Miley Cyrus. Now, I wasn’t too thrilled about seeing a movie with Miley Cryus in it, but in this movie, she seemed to have a perfect size roll. Anyway, the problem with Bolt is that he actually believes that what’s happening in the TV series is real, and he thinks he really has superpowers. Bolt is voiced by John Travolta; an interesting choice. One night, these two cats come into Bolt’s trailer and trick him into thinking they’re holding Penny hostage, Bolt runs after them and gets himself trapped in a box, which gets shipped to New York City. When he emerges, he realizes that his superpowers are not working and somehow gets the idea that Styrofoam is his weakness. Bolt is now trying to find his way back to Hollywood, and he teams up with two other animals. One of them is a cat named Mittens. Yeah, I know its cliché. We’ve got a boy dog and a girl cat, and the cat has probably the most overused cat name, but I actually liked Mittens as a character; she has a good personality. The other animal they meet is this gerbil named Rhino, who is referred to by many as one of the most annoying Disney characters of all time. He’s an overenthusiastic gerbil with a plastic ball that he runs around in, plus he’s Bolt’s biggest fan. Bolt makes these weird reactions to the stuff that happens in real life that he’s unaware of, which is actually ludicrously hilarious. There’s one part where he notices he’s bleeding but doesn’t know what the red liquid is supposed to be; there’s also a part where his stomach growls and he thinks that Mittens implanted some kind of poison in him. The movie also has these pigeons. I remember seeing them in the trailer for this movie, and at a glance, I thought they were going to be characters that would pop up every so often, and every time they were on screen, they would literally steal the show, much like the penguins in “Madagascar”. Well, they are in some ways like that, except these characters are not as annoying. Well, overall, throughout a majority of the 2000’s, Disney’s movies have been real dismal flops because they kept trying to do something new, but “Bolt” is more like the Disney I know and love. I hope this movie will mark the beginning of a new renaissance era for Disney. My Rating: A
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Post by Belchic on Jun 29, 2011 0:43:30 GMT -5
49. The Princess and the Frog (2009) It’s Disney’s Amazing Animagic! In our history of Disney Animated Classics, we’ve seen a lot of drastic changes in animation, but now it’s time to go back to basics with “The Princess and the Frog”. To start things off, when I went to see this movie theatrically, I gotta say that it was definitely a nice breath of fresh air to see some traditional animation on the big screen. For the past five years, literally every animated movie that came out was computer animated. And no, “The Simpsons Movie” doesn’t count. With that aside, I went to see this movie on opening day, and I was expecting it to be decent, but what came to me was a shocking surprise. The movie turned out to be an absolute masterpiece! The plot involves a girl from New Orleans named Tiana whose father had a dream of opening his own restaurant. After her father passed away, Tiana worked a living as a waitress to fulfill her father’s dream. Once she makes enough money to start her restaurant, someone else outbids her. Meanwhile, a jazz-loving prince named Naveen comes to New Orleans to marry a princess along with his jaded valet, Lawrence. Enter the villain, Doctor Facilier, a voodoo magician who makes a deal with Naveen and Lawrence to fulfill their dreams. He winds up turning Lawrence into Naveen, and Naveen into a frog. While at a Mardi Gras party, Naveen and Tiana meet, and they are both familiar with the story of the Frog Prince. Naveen convinces Tiana to kiss him on the lips to turn human again, but since she wasn’t really a princess, the magic backfires and turns her into a frog. Naveen and Tiana go on a big adventure to try to get them both turned human and help Tiana fulfill her dream. Along the way, they meet Louis, a comical alligator who has always dreamed of playing in a jazz band, and Ray, a lovesick Cajun firefly. At first, Tiana is disgusted by Naveen, but throughout the movie, the two of them develop some good chemistry, and eventually, she falls in love with him. There’s also a pretty big handful of songs composed by Randy Newman, which I didn’t feel too keen on at first, but they actually turned out really good. On a whole, “The Princess and the Frog”, actually is a pretty darn good movie. It really gives a feel that brings you back to Disney’s Renaissance era. If you’re a fan of “Aladdin” and “The Little Mermaid”, then I strongly recommend viewing this movie. This is definitely classic Disney at its finest, and maybe, just maybe, this movie will put some sense into Disney and encourage them to continue to make animated films the way they should be made. My Rating: A
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Post by Belchic on Jun 29, 2011 0:48:03 GMT -5
50. Tangled (2010) Thank you all for joining me, and welcome to the epic conclusion! It’s Disney’s Amazing Animagic! “Rapunzel” is a concept that Disney was trying to make into an animated feature for a long time. It was in the works since 2003 but wasn’t officially out until 2010, so we had a long wait for this film. Originally, this movie was going to be hand-drawn, but they later decided to make it CG and at the last minute changed the name of the film to “Tangled”; that way, they could generate a mixed audience rather than just girls. At first, when I heard about these changes, I started to get worried thinking this was going to turn out to be like “Shrek”, but when I went and saw it, I was actually really surprised. With “Tangled”, Disney did what they did with “Bolt” and “The Princess and the Frog” and put story before anything else. Anyway, this film is about this woman named Gothel who strangely looks like Cher who has lived for hundreds of years because she had this magic flower, which made her younger every time she sang a song to it. One day, a mob of people trespass onto her land and take the flower away and destroy it using it’s remains to heal their queen, who gave birth to a girl named Rapunzel. The power of the flower is inside Rapunzel, so Gothel kidnaps her and adopts her as her daughter, and she keeps her locked in a tower for 18 years never to release her to the real world. Rapunzel is voiced by Mandy Moore, and unlike the other Disney princesses, she’s unique as she seems to be very kind caring about more than just herself, that and she’s got the personality of modern-day 18-year-olds girls. Oh, and how can I not talk about her incredibly long hair, which she always seems to put a lot of good use into. Meanwhile, there’s this guy named Flynn Rider who stole a crown from the kingdom Rapunzel came from, and everyone’s out to stop him including this really pissed off horse named Maximus. I won’t give too much more away because the film has way too many sub-plots and I don’t want to give away the ending, but Flynn and Rapunzel do meet and become soulmates. Overall, this was definitely a great choice that Disney made for their 50th animated feature, since they went in the right direction with it. There’s a priority list when it comes to making a computer-animated film. Story must always be the primary focus, next would be the characters, then the animation; jokes should come last. This is the formula that Disney definitely used for “Tangled”. In addition, the film had an assortment of great songs, which doesn’t usually happen in a CGI film, and what better guy to compose them than Alan Menken? I wouldn’t say the film is a masterpiece because some scenes in it are kind of creepy, but on a whole, this is a movie that’s worth checking out by all means. My Rating: B+
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