Beauty and the Beast (1991)

23 October 202317 January 2024 ~ Not Alison ~ Leave a comment

photo of the cover for the 2010 blu-ray release of Disney’s 1991 Beauty and the Beast, showing Belle dancing with Beast with Mrs. Potts, Chip, Cogsworth, a French featherduster, and Lumiere in the foreground looking pleased, and the rose in glass sitting beside them

What does she want?

“I want adventure in the great wide somewhere!” Belle sings it to us directly. She gets her adventure, but while the castle is certainly more than the provincial life she feared, being confined there is not a great wide open space. When she leaves the castle to go to her father, she has a second adventure, but again this isn’t a great wide somewhere. She can’t have both of the things she asks for, apparently.

Also notice how she complains that nothing changes in the quiet town where every day is like the one before and then ends up in a castle where everything has been the same day after day for years. In this case, however, she herself brings the change she wants and makes everything different.

What does he want?

It isn’t said directly, but apparently more than being human again the Beast wants to lash out and punish others for his unhappiness. He might want to be human, but he has no hope that it can happen and assumes it never will, so being angry at the world is all there is, along with being angry at himself for causing this mess. My own speculation is that while he doubtless started out blaming everything and everyone but himself, over the years he’s come to admit to himself that his own behavior led the enchantress to cast the spell, and he’s owned up to his own role in his misfortune. But that’s not what will break the spell, so he’s still always ready to spread his misery to anyone in striking range.

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How can she be so casual about a sheep chewing the corner off a page in her book? What is wrong with you, Belle? How can you love books and not care what happens to the pages? In my mind she swipes the book away and frowns sternly just before the sheep can take a bite.

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I’m uncomfortable every time I see a movie with wolf scenes like this film has. Philippe the horse might have something to fear, but basically wolves don’t attack human beings without a reason like rabies or the human is violently threatening the pack. I’ve heard that European wolves may have been less hesitant to attack people than U.S. wolves are, but scenes like this are essentially Medieval anti-wolf propaganda.

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Things I never noticed before:

• For all the talk of how much Gaston is admired and adored, at the start of the story everybody pretty much ignores his pleading for them to get out of his way. He’s not more important than their own business (or gossip).

• The Beast is in body a beast. He’s gigantic, has fangs, has massive paws with ravaging claws. But by all appearances he doesn’t physically harm Maurice in the slightest. He has the power to inflict a nightmarish mauling, but instead places the man in a cell uninjured.

• “I have been burned by you before!”

• The castle staff have been living under this spell for ten years and most days there is nothing to do but lie around idle. I’ve watched Beauty and the Beast several times, and heard “Be Our Guest” even more, but I had not really listened to these lines. Now I finally hear how miserable their lives must be in this near-vacant castle with only the Beast to feed, and the rest of the day (every day) reduced to sheer emptiness.

• Although we the audience have seen the prologue, Belle has not. For all she knows, the Beast has been a beast his entire life. She’s left to figure out for herself that he was once human.

• When Belle sneaks into the west wing of the castle, she’s being spectacularly rude. The enchanted staff have just gone out of their way to break rules for her, and she repays them by slipping off into the one part of the castle she knows she’s not allowed into and where Cogsworth and Lumiere have just begged her not to go. Worse, when she gets into the Beast’s torn-up room and sees the flower in a glass case, she goes right over and takes the case away! It’s the one precious item in a devastated room that gets careful treatment (along with the hand mirror beside it), but she doesn’t respect the painfully obvious intention to keep this flower safe. Her curiosity has led her past common decency and good sense.

• In the song “Something There,” the Beast entertains (though quickly dismisses) the idea that Belle might now care for him. It could be that he is finally coming to see something in himself he hasn’t seen before (or saw only, as a human, in an entitled, privileged, false way): that he is someone worth loving.

• At the end of the movie, Mrs. Potts assures Chip the couple will live happily ever after, but she isn’t saying this to the audience, or not to all of the audience. She’s saying this to her son, because of course this is how you answer a small child; yet the rest of us don’t have to imagine things are as simple as that in a relationship.

• The closing credits have a couple of voice credits for characters labeled “Bimbette.” No. No. No. Ugh.

For a sideways look at the 2017 live-action remake, see here.

The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning (2008)

19 March 202319 March 2023 ~ Not Alison ~ Leave a comment

photo of the cover to the blu-ray two-movie collection of Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea and Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning, showing mermaid Ariel on the left and mermaid Melody on the right, both facing the center of the cover; Sebastian the crab is at bottom center; three of Ariel’s sisters are bottom left; Flounder and Morgana the lesser sea witch are center right

I hadn’t seen this prequel before, and I went in fully expecting it to be awful. I never would have watched it at all except that it’s on the blu-ray of Return to the Sea, which I knew I wanted. And yet, it’s actually a lot of fun.

Okay, I spent half the movie/special worrying it would end with Marina being transformed into Ursula, which would be wrong for three reasons: (1) her conflict with Triton ought to be far back in time, much longer ago than this story takes place; (2) if she had this kind of rivalry with Sebastian, she wouldn’t have been so blasé about him being in the cavern when Ariel signed the contract in Little Mermaid; (3) it’s better moviemaking to give the audience a new villain instead of danger always coming from the same place, and it’s weak moviemaking to think you need to cram everything from the original into the prequel.

I feel like I’ve seen the “he banned all music” trope just a few too many times. I love Sound of Music, but I don’t want to see that same device played out again and again in animated stories.

On the other hand, here that trope allows us to see the underground sing-easy, introduced in a magnificent scene.

Other good things:

The song from Ariel’s childhood is “Endless Sky,” something you can’t experience under the sea.

We know why Triton is so intense about Ariel staying away from the surface. It didn’t necessarily need more explanation, but Ariel’s Beginning deepens our understanding of his feelings.

Triton is just as impulsive and hyperreactive as he was in The Little Mermaid, but missing here is his regret and doubt immediately after. This is not a flaw in the script: he has not yet learned to question his own behavior.

Ariel’s sisters got short-changed in the original Little Mermaid. They help set up the concert problem, and she mentions them a single time when weighing whether or not to sign Ursula’s contract, and that’s pretty much all that’s done with them. Poking their heads out of the water at the end, they could just be random merfolk coming to watch the princess. Which is to say, you could write them out of the story and it wouldn’t change anything except that unrelated court singers would have to do the concert lead-in. We don’t see much evidence that Ariel is connected to them the way you would be if you grew up with sisters. Ariel’s Beginning remedies that, and so deepens the effect of Ariel’s decisions in the original film.

Benjamin is a fun character.

The songs are better here than in Return to the Sea.

Ariel’s “I Remember” number is right on target that songs help us remember feelings we had and stir up things we’d forgotten, and we value music for that very reason. It’s why Triton has banned music, and why Ariel now wants it back.

“—he was a BAD boy!”

“She really can’t dance.”

“. . . but high enough so they can’t see the disdain on my face.”

Watching Marina bask in her triumph is great fun. Watching her do just about anything in this movie is fun.

To my surprise, this movie/special avoids just about all the things that make a direct-to-video sequel rubbish.

I’ve decided that Flounder got his name from the guys at the Catfish Club, and it was affectionate but not a compliment.

Also see:
The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea

The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea (2000)

15 March 202319 March 2023 ~ Not Alison ~ Leave a comment

photo of the top half of the back cover to the blu-ray two-movie collection of Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea and Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning, with one picture from each movie and a list of bonus features

Overall, this is good.

First, they made a smart decision to take the story further in time and focus on Ariel’s daughter, not create a new situation all about Ariel. They do work in Ariel turning back into a mermaid, but they give her a darn good reason to do it. And to the extent that this plot rehashes the first—daughter longs for other life, rebels against family, bargains with sea witch—it’s done in reverse, showing the opposite side of the coin, and places Ariel to some extent in the role of Triton, making overprotective mistakes even if she’s gentler about it. As a bonus, Melody’s age nearly matches how much actual time passed for the audience between release of the original movie (1989) and release of the sequel (2000). Plus it’s just really enjoyable to see how Ariel’s life developed after the end of the first movie.

Second, they got back most of the original voice cast. Sometimes people are genuinely unavailable (even deceased), but too many sequels either don’t want to pay the original voice actors or don’t have scripts good enough to interest them. But audiences definitely want the real character voices.

Third, on the whole the story makes sense and holds together. The emotional arc rings true and provides a reason for the movie/special to be here. There are no gaping plot holes, glaring inconsistencies, or wild coincidences to keep the action moving or provide resolution.

That’s not to say there aren’t problems.

One, we have to overlook the implausibly long lives of some characters. Others (like Max the dog), if not dead, would be too old to be as active as they’re portrayed. Surely Grimsby would at least be retired.

Two, it’s a bit of a stretch that nobody can find Morgana for twelve years. Possibly the ice cavern is the top of an island/iceberg that floats around, not a stationary target, which would help. And of course Triton isn’t going to be intently searching the entire time—and maybe we’re supposed to think he stopped looking altogether after the wall was put up.

Third, the wall itself is dubious. Is Ariel’s reaction really going to be to wall off the sea entirely? This is hardly the only solution. And even if she did choose the wall, why does that entail cutting off all ties with Triton and keeping her daughter completely ignorant of her heritage? The decision to build a wall can kind of be explained but doesn’t feel convincing.

Worse than any story shortcomings, however, the songs fall short. At one point I wanted to say they would’ve been better off leaving out songs entirely; but music was such an essential part of The Little Mermaid that everyone expects it to have a role in the sequel, and the girl is named Melody! You’ve got to have the characters singing songs. We know Jodi Benson can sing, so I don’t understand why the songs featuring Ariel are so lifeless.

“For One Moment” ought to be the emotional highlight—the moviemakers doubtless meant for it to be, but it doesn’t fully rise to the occasion. It’s like the ingredients are all there but aren’t coming together right, a cake that was mixed poorly or underbaked. Did they need a bigger orchestra holding up the vocals? Did a musical director not spend enough time pulling the best performances out of the two leads? Were people involved, at whatever level, not given enough time to make it right? It isn’t bad, it’s just isn’t great, and suffers inevitably by comparison with everything in the original film. It’s not fair to expect everyone to be on the level of Menken and Ashman, and Disney is hardly going to go out and hire, say, Steven Sondheim for this production, but this one song at least needed extra magic it didn’t get. It frustrates me because I think the song could’ve gotten there, and almost did.

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Triton knows exactly what to do to torment that big, bad bully shark.

The appearance of the wall in the time-passing moment is quite effective. The wall is ominous.

There are truths that children need to know about themselves, and when you conceal those truths, disaster results. It’s easy to say “they’re too young, we’ll explain later, when they’re older,” but life shows us that parents tend to be extraordinarily unwilling to ever admit the time has come, and inevitably the child feels cheated or resentful when the truth finally comes out.

Morgana knows where Melody is, and we might wonder why she hasn’t done anything to the girl in all this time. But Morgana hasn’t spent twelve years plotting to destroy Melody, she’s spent twelve years plotting to get the trident. Melody was never more than a tool on the way to that goal, and the wall is apparently enough to keep her looking for different tools (at least until Melody touching the magic pendant draws Morgana’s attention back to her). So to that extent the wall did work.

If this sea witch wants the same object as the last one did, she is explicitly trying to outdo her sister, so there’s a reason for the repetition. Note that the actual motivation is different—Ursula had a personal score to settle on top of wanting power. (Morgana does too, but it’s not with Triton.) Is Morgana not as scary or as competent as Ursula? Well, the story makes clear Morgana was always considered second-best.

Most of what Morgana tells Melody in the seduction sequence is quite true. “Triton stole my trident” is obviously baloney, but “Your mother kept this from you” and “You’re not just some human” are spot-on, and even the part about the mermaid transformation being temporary turns out to be accurate.

With some reflection, Melody might ask herself, “If Morgana can’t get the trident back by herself what makes me think I can get it?” Melody might be old enough to ask this, but the answer is that the thief knows Morgana and guards will be on the alert for her, but no one will be suspicious of innocent young mermaid Melody.

Sharks grow new teeth constantly. Knocking out Undertow’s teeth isn’t a long-term solution, although we can hope that without Morgana he won’t be chasing down Triton’s family to cause them more trouble. He’ll probably remain a bully, but maybe he’s practical enough to decide that being big again is good enough and he’s better off keeping clear of the Sea King instead of trying to settle the score by himself.

I am going to assume that Melody goes and stays with her grandfather underwater for a month or two every summer, and he makes her a mermaid for that time, and whether she wants to live as human or merfolk in the end is something she can decide when she’s older. For now she can experience both lives and learn who she really is.

Maybe Melody is the ancestor of the type of mermaid seen in Splash, able to have legs on land and a tail in the sea, because Triton someday magically changes her to be that way and she happens to pass this trait on to her children. (Did you know Splash was the first movie produced by Disney’s live-action studio Touchstone Pictures?)

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In this story I truly appreciate the idea of claiming your uniqueness and taking hold of what makes you different from everyone else. You don’t need to give away what makes you special and become something ordinary.

Also see:
The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning

Reflections: The Little Mermaid (1989)

10 March 202319 March 2023 ~ Not Alison ~ Leave a comment

photo of the cover of the “Anniversary Edition” blu-ray of Disney’s animated film The Little Mermaid, showing Ariel looking up to the top left corner with Flounder on one side and Sebastian on the other, and Ursula grinning in the lower distance — Every time I see this cover I start to whistle “Under the Sea.”

It’s mentioned a lot in DVD extras and the like, but casual post–Gen X viewers may not realize how revolutionary The Little Mermaid was in U.S. animation when it came out.* In the 1980s animated movies were still being made—Secret of NIMH, Last Unicorn, American Tail, Disney’s own Oliver and Company—but they weren’t huge, and Disney was more engaged with making live-action films and rereleasing past glories than with creating new animation.

The idea of “the Disney princess” did not exist. Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty were around, but they weren’t viewed as a collective franchise or thought of as a group beyond the general fact that all three were in Disney movies. Now, after a long spell of modest efforts, Disney went back to the formula of fairy tale + songs, and The Little Mermaid became an enormous success, effectively launching all the princess films that followed, from Beauty and the Beast to Pocahontas on through Moana. Animation from other studios came hurrying after in the wake.

Disney animated movies had always had songs, but this time the songs took on a new dimension. Howard Ashman and Alan Menken brought in more of the sensibility of musical theatre, and transformed what the animated musical looked like. Oliver and Company—its production overlapped with that of Little Mermaid—was also a musical, but something about it didn’t catch. Little Mermaid got into the country’s heart.

This is a wonderful, moving film, combining dynamic animation, beautiful music, and characters with depth and complexity, a film that went light years beyond the things that had come before it in this country. It soared off the screen in a way we weren’t prepared for.

* I specify U.S. animation, because despite Battle of the Planets, Star Blazers, and Robotech, general U.S. culture wasn’t paying attention to the animation coming out of Japan.

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I had a problem the first time I saw Little Mermaid, though: I knew how the story was supposed to end, and I felt betrayed because they changed the beauty of the original story’s conclusion. After all, it’s only logical that if you’re to choose a tragedy, you must be okay with a heartbreaking ending. Keeping the unhappy ending seems unthinkable now, but at the time it actually felt possible to me—naive perhaps, but also a sign that the movie existed at a truly transitional moment, with the old Disney fairy-tales long past, and the modern stream not yet imagined. I knew this film was a new thing, although it wasn’t quite as groundbreaking as that would have been.

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Ariel is an active princess who goes out and pursues her desires. She has choices, and she makes them herself, good and bad. The entire plot moves because she is chasing her dreams and fantasies, and if she had been a passive, obedient daughter, the story would consist of a successful debut concert and Eric’s ship sinking, which she would not care about even if she knew of it, because it would be just another shipwreck she had no connection to.

I think one of the main reasons this film had such an impact is that as an audience we care deeply about Ariel, something that might be traced largely to a single song. “Part of Your World” brings together lyrics, instruments, vocal performance, and animation into a sequence of almost tangible longing. From the careful, steady pacing to the breathiness of certain lines to the size of her eyes and the way she literally reaches upward to the world she can’t have, it all brings you into her yearning so you can feel what she feels (and oh-so-naturally slips in a phrase you might not notice at the time or think about even after you know what happens later: “What would I give—?”).

Ariel’s father Triton does harsh things that hurt her but immediately regrets losing his temper and second-guesses his impulsive actions. He doesn’t rage over nothing, but he overreacts, then sees that he overreacted and blames himself. He acts like he has all the answers, but when he has time to think, he realizes he doesn’t. His negative actions drive Ariel forward in the plot, but he isn’t a villain. And when the moment comes to save Ariel, he takes her place just as impulsively and without concern for anything but her.

Ursula the sea witch is intelligent, devious, and crafty. More than that, she’s formidable. She thinks several steps ahead and has an old feud with Triton that the storyline only skims but must have been festering for years. You might suspect that all the merfolk she’s cheated over this time have in some way been jabs to get back at Triton, taking his people away from him whenever she can. The movie’s main character is only a pawn in Ursula’s own tale; she uses Ariel as a tool to achieve something else and near the end directly tells her, “It’s not you I’m after.” Ursula’s grievance and resentment has made her keen and meticulous instead of impulsive and reckless; in temperament she is the exact opposite of Triton. Which is probably why she finally gets the better of him. (Note that Triton has no hand in defeating her.)

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We should not overlook the sheer daring of deciding to make a musical, establishing within the story that the main character has a beautiful singing voice, and then making that character voiceless for half the movie.

The first time I saw a picture of what actual flounders look like, I was first disgusted and second confused, because there was no way Flounder was a flounder, no matter how much you prettify an ugly fish for animation. But of course, he isn’t a flounder, it’s just his name, inexplicably. This is a lot like naming your horse Moose, or calling your dog Hyena. But did Ariel name him or did his mother or did he name himself? I think we should know that.

I wonder, was this the last Disney fairy-tale where the villain was deliberately killed by one of the good guys? Usually they fall by accident or some natural disaster overtakes them.

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Comics Scene magazine, issue 11 (Feb. 1990)

I recently read an article from an issue of Comics Scene—which, as you can see, covered animation as well as comics—about The Little Mermaid. The cover date is Feb 1990, but it would’ve been published a little earlier; this would’ve been on sale while the movie was in theaters, and the article written before that. The people being interviewed couldn’t be sure how successful the movie would be, and it’s funny to see the co-director feeling a need to clarify that Ariel is the name of the main character.

I think my favorite part of the article is this little gem about Ursula:

“Inky, slinky Ursula is voiced by Pat Carroll, who envisions the character as part Shakespearean actress, with all the requisite theatricality, and part used car saleswoman.”

detail of page 38 of Comics Scene issue 11 (Feb. 1990), showing an animation still of Ursula from Disnely’s Little Mermaid overlaid with the following text: “Inky, slinky Ursula is voiced by Pat Carroll, who envisions the character as part Shakespearean actress, with all the requisite theatricality, and part used car saleswoman.” — “inky, slinky Ursula”

detail of page 38 of Comics Scene issue 11 (Feb. 1990), with a photo of Ruben Aquino drawing beside a sculpted maquette of Ursula; the photo caption reads “Born and raised in Okinawa, Ruben Aquino supervised a staff of four animators assigned to Ursula.”; some text of the Little Mermaid article is to the right of the photo — Ruben Aquino at work

Also see:
The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea
The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning

Reflections: The Rescuers (1977)

10 January 202214 January 2022 ~ Not Alison ~ Leave a comment

photo of the cover for the 35th anniversary edition Blu-ray of Disney's movie The Rescuers with The Rescuers Down Under included

This was one of those Disney movies I was ready to see over and over during my childhood. I liked the mice, I thought the albatross was funny, and the dragonfly and alligators were great—but what really captured my interest was the skull.

Human skulls were not common in children’s entertainment in those days (late 1970s, early 80s). I was fascinated. The skull was realistic enough to be creepy and make me feel like squirming, and then it had a jewel in its eye socket! Invisible shivers. Something about there being eye holes in the first place, the emptiness of the skull where eyes ought to be, was particularly unnerving. (We soon see the whole inside of the empty skull, but it’s the eye sockets that got to me.)

I loved that part of the movie, every time.

Unlike The Aristocats (another big favorite), The Rescuers had no spectacular catchy music; “Rescue Aid So-ci-e-ty” was likable, but not amazing, and that’s the only tune I could remember from the whole thing. Watching it again, I find that the other songs are quite nice, but they’re gentle (or sad) and not tunes that reach out and shake you. They’re like slightly more hopeful Carpenters songs.

I was an adult before I understood the movie was based on a series of books, and it wasn’t until a year ago that I read any of them, the first two. The things I remember most are:
1. There are vast differences between the movie and the books.
2. The second book (Miss Bianca) includes crazy wind-up robot maids that are utterly unrealistic even today.
3. The first book ended so conclusively there could not be a continuation featuring these two mice, and yet there was, and the resolution of the first one was conveniently forgotten.

Disney sort of took the Bianca-and-Bernard-meet-and-get-to-know-each-other material from book one, transformed and transplanted the captive-girl-and-rich-crazy-woman aspects of book two, then added in their own plot (possibly with some elements lifted from later books I didn’t read). Basically, don’t expect to find the movie story in one of the Margery Sharp books.

A romance between Bianca and Bernard doesn’t seem quite right. They’re in two different worlds, right? She’s very glamorous and he very much isn’t. And yet, watching it on screen, with the vocal performance of Eva Gabor and the way Bianca is animated, it does seem to work after all. Seeing and listening to Bianca interact with other characters I just end up believing, yes, she might pick him. Why not? It feels like there’s no reason she has to but also no reason she wouldn’t.

The opening credits play out over a series of lovely paintings that show Penny’s message bottle traveling through the waters. For the most part these are still images, with the camera panning across them, and it’s easy to miss that something is actually happening. Regular animation might better focus the audience (especially children) on the bottle and its journey, but I’m not sure I would choose that if I could.

Although the artwork is much more polished and finished than what you see in The Aristocats, this movie too has some of that sketch-like style created by leaving a few working lines unerased and visible under the colors. It’s mostly seen around the outer edges of a character, particularly when someone is moving quickly.

In addition to the skull, another thing that fascinated my childhood self was the use of a comb as a ladder. I don’t know why, but that just really struck me, probably connected to seeing an everyday object that’s small to me but huge to these characters and used for something totally different. (Call it the “Borrowers Effect.”)

In Madame Medusa’s pawn shop, she has an NRA badge hanging on the bars protecting the cashier’s window. Boy does she live up to it.

At this point Disney was still doing alcohol as comic relief, though without identifying it as alcohol. It’s just a jug, but you can figure out quickly that it’s moonshine.

Honestly the whole element of what I’ll kindly call “uneducated country folk” humor puts me off nowadays, but I’m just going to overlook it here and tell myself it’s redeemed by how helpful these characters are. (They’re rescuers too, actually.)

Decades later, I still enjoy The Rescuers a lot.

Though I think I’d like Evinrude more without the moustache.

The Rescuers Down Under (1990)

I didn’t see this movie until fifteen or twenty years after its release. As much as I loved the original, I didn’t feel any particular draw to the sequel. I have a feeling it looked too polished for my tastes, not as rough and earthy as the original, giving it the flavor of a cheap, sanitized direct-to-home-video release. (Though it’s safe to say the sequel cost a whole lot more, and probably had more work-hours poured into it.)

Before watching Rescuers Down Under a second time, I couldn’t remember much about it aside from a large bird flying down over a waterfall, a mouse* with an Australian accent hitting on Miss Bianca, and a boy being the rescued human. I didn’t recall anything that would justify making the sequel—after 13 years, it wasn’t a hot property, and the new story was evidently not that memorable. So maybe Disney felt they had to put out something, and Beauty and the Beast wasn’t ready yet?

Yet it’s an enjoyable movie. There’s a lot of really lovely animation—especially early on, with dives and soaring and little details like the boy running his hand up a loose feather—and I feel good seeing Bernard and Bianca together again. (It isn’t clear how much time has passed since the first movie, and that’s probably a good thing; you can decide for yourself how long their relationship has been developing.)

According to the credits, this movie wasn’t even “suggested by” Margery Sharp’s books, it was “suggested by characters created by Margery Sharp.” Lotta distance there.

Surprisingly, Bianca and Bernard are played by the same stars as in the first film; even the R.A.S. chairman’s voice actor returns. They couldn’t have Orville the albatross voiced by the same man, and instead of the easy answer—quietly recast the role—they chose to hire someone famous and say this film’s albatross was Orville’s brother (called Wilbur, naturally).

There’s a lot here that anticipates The Lion King. During the opening credits, a casual viewer might even think this was The Lion King before the title appears. And let me say the movement through the field of flowers, which go whizzing by while objects in the distance barely get bigger, is marvelous.

This was one of Disney’s early efforts in mixing CGI with hand-drawn animation. It isn’t quite seamless, because you can tell certain shots use computer-generated objects, but it’s smooth enough you don’t think, “Ugh, that looks lousy! How primitive!” Or at least I didn’t think that. I’ve seen lots of mixtures of CGI and hand-drawn art that didn’t work, but this one did. (Also I was kind of shocked to see a Pixar section in the closing credits. This early.)

A point that may seem minor: it’s essential to the climax that mice can’t get out of a certain giant cage, so fine mesh—like the material a screen door is made of—has to be lining that cage. That is really difficult to draw, keeping the lines close enough together that we can tell what it is but with enough space between lines that we can see what’s on the other side. The animators had to do it in multiple scenes, even before the mesh was important to the plot, and they did it perfectly.

The chainsaw was too much. Eee.

Interesting aspect of the title: as in the first film, animals rescue humans, but this time humans also rescue animals.

The villain in this story is not only ready to feed a little boy to crocodiles, he says outright that he thinks that’s fun. Yikes.

Heroes in Disney movies don’t normally take extra steps that will obviously speed up a villain’s death. Well.

Where’s this little boy’s accent?

As Disney sequels go, this one’s good. The story as a whole might not stick with you too long, but the plot seems solid and well-planned. There’s just some emotion missing, which the action doesn’t quite generate. Otherwise the movie received all the effort and treatment a theatrical release deserves. (This is no Return of Jafar.)

*I thought he might be a jerboa, but after five minutes of research I figure he’s a species of hopping mouse, maybe the spinifex.