When Walt Disney was a person alive making animations movies and not just a brand, he had the dream of making animated concerts mixing his animation with classical music. Fantasia was born. It was 1940.
Fantasia 2000 is a celebration of Disney's vision, an a celebratory anniversary of the original Fantasia. James Levine directs the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in seven new animated short films. Some of them are an abstract mix of colour, light and movement. Some other are a creation inspired by specific musical pieces, while others have a story for which a piece of music was created a posteriori.
1/ An Allegro from Beethoven's "Symphony No. 5", offers an abstract light, colour and abstract birds & butterflies very short short.
2/ Respighi's "Pines of Rome" shows a family of humpback whales playfully swiming from water to air. This is my favourite short, as it is completely experimental, pure fantasia and extravaganza, but still very modern in animation style and feeling. Very New Age, in a way.
3/ Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" inspires a story set in New York during the Big Depression, with moody unhappy characters who dream of having a different life. The animation style is very 1930s and is based in Al Hirschfeld's cartoons. The first seconds of the segment are brilliant, but the whole piece captures the spirit of old-style 2D animation with great mastery.
4/ An Allegro from Shostakovich's "Piano Concerto No. 2" matches a version of Hans Christian Andersen's The Steadfast Tin Soldier. This is the most linear story, and the one I enjoyed the least.
5/ Saint-Saëns's "Carnival of the Animals" offers a colourful flamboyant scene of dancing flamingos that are trying to get a yoyo-obsessed dancing flamingo back into the flock and dancing routine. It reminded me of the Warner Bross old classics cartoons! Delightful.
6/Dukas's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" accompanies Micky Mouse naughty slovenliness in his sorcerer chores in this old well-known piece included in the original Fantasia. Despite its age, the piece is still delightful and fresh.
8/ Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" offers a version of Noah's Ark with Donald Duck and Daisy leading the animals into the ark and into a safe land. 9/ Finally, Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite" offers a story of a death and renewal with a spring fairy and her companion Elk.
The movie has, overall, a retro-style that mimics the style of the original. Walt Disney and Disney Factory's old spirit are still here. However, the fact that each short is introduced by different celebrities (Steven Martin, Quincy Jones, Bette Midler, James Earl Jones, and Angela Landsbury among others) rests fluidity to the movie. I thought the introductions were funny and charming, but I would have preferred longer shorts and shorter speeches. The original Fantasia was original in its conception, but also daring and experimental in its visuals and the stories told. Creativity was overflowing. That cannot be said about Fantasia 2000, although the contrary could be expected with the digital revolution allowing Animators to bring to the big screen almost anything. Still, this is a good entertaining movie. Fantasia 2000 is a very enjoyable family movie that can be enjoyed by both adults and children; it might not be fit for small children as some of the pieces are a bit abstract. This is a wonderful movie to introduce Classic Music to children.
Merida is the oldest daughter of Fergus and Elinor. She is a tomboy, a bit of a rebel, opinionated and wild. She happily lives with her parents and triplets until she is asked to fulfil her destiny, comply with her clan's tradition, and choose a husband from the allied clans' suitors. In constant conflict with her mother, Merida visits an old witch in search for a potion to help her escape her destiny. However, what she finds is a curse of cosmic proportions. How is Merida going to save her mother, herself and the kingdom?
Pixar lost a bit its essence and idiosyncrasy when was engulfed by Disney. Since then, every second Pixar movie we get a real Pixar movie in conception, ideas and originality. The in-between years are for movies like Brave, which follow a template with structured predefined characters, values and jokes that are very much modern Disney.
Brave's animation is amazing from a visual point of view: the colours, layouts, backgrounds, the rendering of the landscapes and characters movement, the camera angling, the 3D design and even the movement of Merida's hair are spectacular. Still, a good animation movie needs of a good script with a sound story and narrative to be successful: what it tells and how it tells it are always more important than how it looks like.
Brave's script -by Mark Andrews, Steve Purcell, Brenda Chapman and Irene Mecchi- is, a priory, a winner. It mixes many European folk legends and human archetypes (like the ones we see in Anderson or the Grimm Brothers' tales) with modern attitudes and sensibilities. Moreover, Merida is in a way, a combination of all old Disney's heroines. The film is entertaining and beautiful to watch, and some of the characters are very funny. There are many funny moments especially those involving the witch, Merida's triplet brothers, and the lady bear.
All the cast of actors do a good job at dubbing their respective characters: Kelly Macdonald as Merida, Billy Connolly as Merida's father, Emma Thompson as her mother, and Julie Walters as the Witch. To be fair, Billy Connolly's dubbing always sounds like himself not as the character he plays.
Still, Brave does not deliver beyond the artistic qualities of the animation, because the story sends contradictory messages. It feels as if the writing team had done bit and pieces separately, and then stitched them together without further adjustment and polishing. Being so, the movie can be labelled, depending on the moment, as feminist, sexist, retrograde, modern, advanced or conservative. Two main messages are sent to the world. 1/ "Obey your mother". That can be a revolutionary message in a world in which children are spoiled-rotten and disrespect their parents. However, going from there to deciding that everything mammy says is good for your future and that the tradition has to be respected no matter how senseless it is, it is a bit reactionary. 2/ On the other hand, the story tells us that you can be brave and daring, but until certain point - bravery is subversive, and subversion is not good. What?! Be brave and make your own fate, free will do exist, but fate is fateful and will crash you if you subvert the status-quo. What! What? What?!
Too much is always too much. Brave is a beautiful senseless sermon that gets lost in its own wordiness and senseless preaching. It is perfect for small children, as it has lots of action and some funny moments that the little ones (and your inner child) will enjoy. More sounded boys and girls, our just your sound self, could get a bit puzzled at the moral of the story and the wordy ending.
Tangled is a free adaptation of the traditional fairy-tale of Rapunzel. A fairy-tale romance and adventure movie, but also a coming of age story in which Rapunzel leaves the too-oppressive maternal womb to discover the world and herself. Follow your dream and leave your child discover the world for herself are the two main messages of the film.
The animation is terrific, very beautiful and colourful, but more eye-catching than artistic I would say. However, the scene of the flying lanterns is just magical, extremely beautiful and inspiring, as well as the drawing of some of the forest backgrounds. The main human characters are great, very witty and lovable/hate-able. I found horse Maximus truly hilarious, and the chameleon very sweet, wise and naughty. I loved the fact that the animals don't talk, still they have their own personality and communicate with their owners in their own way.
The cast really shines in this movie, and I loved the fact that they were not the usual superstar actors doing the dubbing. Mandy Moore is great as the very sweet, forward and naive Rapunzel. Zachary Levi is cheeky and sweet in his impersonation of the rascal outlaw Flynn Rider. However, the Oscar goes to Donna Murphy, who is brilliant in her role of villain, and she is immediately hate-able as Mother Gothel; she is the epitome of a witch, and one of the best witches ever created by Disney.
Alan Menken's score and Glenn Slater's lyric have to be praised, as they really give the movie its soul and mood. Unforgettable is the song "I have a dream", sung by a bunch of ugly looking outlaws, which has great lyrics and melody. This is one of the loveliest scenes in the film, too. Also brilliant is Gothel's song Mother knows Best, that sums up very well her selfish approach to motherhood. The singing by Moore, Levi and Murphy is great.
I found some important flaws and miss-messages in the film, that are clearly noticeable, even for a child, and that were unnecessary. The first one is the physical appearance of Rapunzel's queen mother. She looks much younger than her husband, almost his daughter, and also looks like Rapunzel's older sister, not her mother. It reflects and shameless portrays the obsession for youth of modern society regarding women. An old man does not have any problem in showing his age, his wrinkles and white hair, actually that makes it more respectable. On the contrary, an old woman has to look young, unwrinkled and have her hair coloured to be likeable as an old woman. That was very disappointing.
The second flaw in the story is the fact that, despite Rapunzel living alone, isolated, incarcerated, never putting her feet out of her tower until rescued by Flynn, she's not only able to swim but also to dive! Are we all fools?!
The third flaw is the marriage thing. The princess is rescued by the prince; she has just turned 18y.o.a, the only human she knows is her fake witchy-bitchy mother, and she is so civilised and she is getting married at 18! I wondered why the script changed many of the quintessential elements of Rapunzel's primitive story and did not dare to do the same with this part. They could have simply omitted Rapunzel's age, or draw her in a more womanly way (she looks like a 13 year old in the movie not a 18y.o.!) and nothing else would have mattered, as the final marriage would have made sense.
Despite the flaws, Tangled is a very entertaining, fun and sweet movie for the whole family, full of action, adventure and sense of humour.
A Christmas Carol is Robert Zemeckis' 3D adaptation of Dickens' eponymous classic novel.
With stories as well-known as this, which have been adapted so many times for the big and small screen, any director faces the challenge to offer something that is new and attractive, still capturing the message and spirit of the novel. Zemeckis really has made an effort trying to revive the book story, adding some elements that are in the novel and are not usually shown in other adaptations: the depiction of the spirit of the present Christmas, the persecution of the black carriage, and the "trip" on the bullet over the city, among others. The eagle views of the city are extremely painterly, realistic and beautiful. The attention to the details of the daily life of the characters, especially of the street life and inner door of the working class are great, too, and they give an idea of what real life was in 19th-century England. The animation is very realistic, created by "mocap", a 3D computerised filming technique in which the actors voice, movement and facial expression serve as a basis for those of the animated characters.
Jim Carrey plays Ebenezer mean Scrooge and the three spirits of Christmas. Gary Oldman is the good-hearted but poor clerk Bob Cratchit and Scrooge's former business partner. Robin Wright Penn plays young Scrooge's fiancée, Colin Firth plays Scrooge's nephew, while Fred Cary Elwes, Bob Hoskins, Ron Bottitta and other supporting actors give their voices and physique to multiple secondary characters. Despite the all-star cast, the movie does not work as an ensemble and there is something indescribable missing from it. The fact that we see the actors quite realistically reflected in the faces of the animated characters leaves little to the imagination, as it does not create enough detachment between the actors and the character they play. If that was the aim, filming a non-animation movie would have been more appropriate. On the other hand, Carrey is not especially inspired in this performance, and we see the more sardonic mime-ish Carrey instead of the good serious dramatic actor he can be; I did not see Scrooge anywhere in this movie, but Jim Carrey's caricature of the character. The rest of the cast is OK in their respective performances, and only Gary Oldman shines in his sweet portray of Scrooge's clerk.
At another level, the tone of the movie is far from being "Christmassy" or dramatic as it is action packed, with the most important dramatic moments of the story just sketched and the action ones delightfully focused on. By doing so we lose the most important thing of Dickens' novel - its soul.
The movie is likeable, but never memorable, and will not move or touch anybody. To do so, the stunning visual animation should have been paired with a more dramatic touch, with a little bit of Christmas magic, which is not the case.
A wasted attempt to revive the magic story of Dickens' novel. Still enjoyable.
