J.D. Hansel

Don Bluth

The Land Before Time Review

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It’s amazing to me that a multimillion-dollar franchise containing fourteen films began with a movie containing so little.  In its  69-minute runtime, it quickly runs through the “greatest hits” of family films for little kids: the parents die, the protagonist is told to follow his heart and just believe and all that crap, a scary conflict keeps arising, the scary conflict goes away every time, a spiritual mentor reminds the protagonist to follow his heart some more, the main characters set aside their differences and strife to safe one of their own, and the protagonist completes his journey to live happily ever after with his newfound family.  It may sound like a lot when I list it like this, but in a movie, this all happens pretty fast.  In this movie, it all happens without enough necessity – it happens purely because the powers that be (Spielberg, Bluth, and Lucas) want it to, so the movie feels lacking in substance to me.  That being said, I think the franchise works because of its simplicity: it has common movie themes, goals, conflicts, and lessons, thus teaching kids the basics of the standard “Hero’s Journey,” and its cast of main characters are distinct from each other and each memorable and marketable in their own ways.

So, the story doesn’t do much for me, and I don’t like being beaten over the head with the “follow your heart” message, but the visuals are outstanding, and it’s a cute movie for the little ones.

An American Tail Review

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MINOR SPOILER WARNING

Sometimes the union of two great artists makes for a film with twice the power of a regular film, whereas other times something just isn’t quite working.  We get a little bit of both here with An American Tail, which is a Don Bluth film that Steven Spielberg commissioned.  I haven’t done enough research on the film to say what exactly the conflicts were between them, but I think some of them may be revealed by the parts of the film that seem a little off.  The choice to go with a child actor with no singing ability for the lead vocalist in a musical seems fine if you’re going for a certain sentiment, but the audience certainly pays the price for that sentimentality when he tries to hit the high notes.  Parts of it are a bit dark and/or adult for a G-rated children’s film, even for the ‘80s – I’m always surprised by how much smoking and profanity makes its way into these films.  I’m very confused about how an animal four times the size of a rat manages to disguise itself as a rat without anyone noticing, and the animators’ answer to this puzzle seems to be just making the size really inconsistent from scene to scene, but what’s more confusing here is the nature of the story.

In this film, characters are introduced only to be abandoned until another scene.  Our protagonist may make a friend and, with little warning, immediately break into song about how they’re best friends.  Everything seems to come out of the blue, making the film feel clunky.  Everything seems rushed, taking away the weight of each scene.  In terms of plot, the story is mostly fine, apart from its mild sense of arbitrarity  – it’s just the way it’s written that doesn’t work right.  The one big problem with the plot is how little the protagonist does to successfully accomplish his goal.  That being said, other aspects of the story are really quite smart, like the irony that comes from how easily Fievel and his family could have found each other if not for slightly bad timing, or the way the mice romanticize America only to have their hopes destroyed by reality.  Between the story, the great soundtrack, and the hilarious voice cast (because everybody likes Madeline Kahn) An American Tail is a perfectly fine film for children . . . it’s just a little irritating for screenwriters.

Anastasia Review

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It’s not a documentary.  With this type of film, the old saying from Mystery Science Theater 3000 rings true: “Repeat to yourself, ‘It’s just a show; I should really just relax.'”  This is the kind of movie that will mean very, very different things to different people, since a historian would be disgusted, but an art student would be impressed, while a composer would be disappointed.  Unfortunately, this movie doesn’t mean very much to me, which makes it rather hard to review.  I suspect that I feel this way purely because the movie is so normal and ordinary for its genre.

The visuals and animation are, as one would expect from Gary Goldman and Don Bluth, really quite impressive, particularly during the more villainous scenes.  However, the visual style still has that feeling of imitating the ’90s Disney look, even right down to copying the shade of green that tends to appear around Disney villains for the scenes with Rasputin.  Also, one can expect to find an all-star cast in these films, with an iconic voice for the villain, and Christopher Lloyd provides more than one could ever wish for in a villain.  The music is outstandingly standard and ordinary that I can hardly remember any of it now.  There are also some aspects of the storyline that have been done to death in family films, and they need to be put to rest – I’m looking at you, “character who leaves the person who cares about him/her because he/she feels unwanted and unworthy in the end.”

That being said, it’s not an unpleasant movie.  The characters and story kept me entertained, and some of the artwork kept me entranced.  I do wish the soundtrack could have been better, but Rasputin’s big musical number is actually a pretty strong (and unique) villain song, with many thanks to the work of Jim Cummings.  The premise alone is one with built-in comedy, and it feels very reminiscent of Mel Brook’s original Producers film.  In short, it’s not quite on the same level as many of the Disney pictures from the time, or the same level as many of Bluth’s best works, but I do think it’s a good enough film for the family to have a good time.

90 Anastasia