Anastasia (1997)

Here's a non-Disney review.

I've just come back from a train wreck. The cause, I conjecture, seems to have been that there were two different trains moving in diametrically opposed directions at very high speeds. The result is this terrible, animated mess of a film.

Now, Anastasia is often remembered by most as a successful 1990's member of the in-illustrious Don Bluth canon of quasi-Disney disasters that have managed to accomplish the following: introducing horrible nightmares into the minds of countless children with their inexplicably morbid images and flashy sequences, causing mass confusion over which popular animated films are (or are not) from the Disney corporation, and (it is speculated) helping to trigger the so-called "Disney Renaissance" that gave birth to such classics as Aladdin and the Lion King (and, it should be noted, such duds as Pocahontas and The Hunchback) by providing the only viable competition in the industry.

What is however not usually recognized about this film (or the Bluth canon) is that it is not just the product of Don Bluth but rather Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, Bluth's longtime friend and collaborator. Typically Goldman has played the role of "supporting man" to Bluth's creative engine, doing work as a co-producer or co-animator, but in a significant number of Bluth's films he also co-directed. It is noteworthy that these particular films are some of Bluth's absolute worst.

The reason I mention this relationship is that it is apparent from watching this film that the dual-headed nature of this film's production is a good explanation for what may have gone wrong with it, since watching it is such an jarring and disjointed experience. In the end, it is an aesthetically pretty mess that was shoddily strung together and prematurely delivered to market and there is this odd unfinished feel to the movie throughout, in-spite of the detailed, awkward animation which itself appears to be more than complete.

This is an ahistorical tale about princess Anastasia, daughter of the last Czar of Imperial Russia, Nicholas II, who was alleged to have inexplicably disappeared sometime between the time her family was massacred by the Bolsheviks, with her included it now turns out, and the time it took for someone to take a head-count of the deceased royal family. One theory, now long discredited, which is explored by this movie, was that the princess had escaped the fate of her family members only to finally reemerge publicly many years later. Many people decry this film for abusing and even grossly distorting the historicity of these events but I am not concerned with that here. I see no reason why we couldn't just pretend that this is fantasy and enjoy the film on other merits, but in fact those other merits wound up being impossible for me to enjoy.

What really irks me about this movie is how the narrative unfolds in such as way as to make you feel crazy. One moment Anastasia is characterized as a naive, sweet peasant girl, fulfilling stock Disney princess traits "borrowed" from Disney classics like Snow White or Cinderella. The next moment, however, she's become, without proper instigation, a sarcastic harpy clawing away at the film's male love interest and then, quite suddenly, transforming back again without explanation. As if this more subtle disjointed characterization were not sufficient, in early scenes Anastasia is shown with short brown hair under a Muscovite hat only to emerge later with long reddish hair that, again, clearly "borrows" it's look from Disney's Ariel of the Little Mermaid.

Other characters fair no better. The annoying Disney-esque familiar to our Jafar-like villain, Rasputan, is an obnoxious little white bat (which channels Iago from Aladdin) who inexplicably moves from being a sinister and vindictive side-kick to an unwilling and disinterested participant to his master's evil scheme. While I am all for a villain having some kind of moral conversion in the course of a story I would at least like to have a reason given for such a change.
But there are no reasons given and it is as if there were two different people working on this film with two different ideas about what the finished product ought to look and feel like. Personalities change, physical appearances change, sequences seem like they were out of place or even done as possible mutually exclusive alternatives and then just thrown into the final mix anyway. There are countless continuity errors, non-sequiturs, garbled quick fixes and implausible conveniences smattered all over the face of this production and it is jarring to the viewer.

At first I sort of liked this movie. I like the subject matter, I like the look of the film, the soundtrack  and I even like the voice acting for the most part. But in the end I found myself getting ripped away from what I was watching by the constant distraction of absurdity and inconsistency that made me recognize all the more that I was really just watching a shoddy, overly ambitious mess.

Perhaps if there were only one captain of the ship then this movie would have been more even handed and some of the big decisions about what was to result could have been made so as to produce something more coherent and polished. As is typical with Don Bluth, there was a lot wasted potential in this film.

It's not as bad as a Troll in Central Park (what is?) but this is no Secret of Nihm either.

I give it 2.8 out of 5 horrifying zombie Rasputins 

John Carter (2012)

One of the biggest bombs in disney film history is also one of the most under appreciated too.....except in Russia, where I hear it was actually a record breaking success. “In Mother Russia, box office record breaks you”.

Based on an old and hilariously outdated scifi novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the guy who created Tarzan, the narrative was destined to fail before this thing ever went into production. Why? Because we (and I mean everybody) know too much about Mars, and science, to take the premise very seriously. I guess, if you want to be positive about it, one way you can think about this story is as a 19th century version of Superman in reverse: A civil war veteran goes to another planet wherein he suddenly acquires superpowers thanks to terrestrial differences between Earth and Mars (false differences) which allows him to help save an alien world.

It’s a tall order to swallow but thankfully the director, Andrew Stanton, of notable Pixar fame, along with a couple of other talented writers with good track records, were able to generate something fun, intentionally goofy, and sufficiently self-aware of the absurd source material. Taylore Kitsch plays the role of John Carter well and in completely comic fashion, which I think is a really good move anytime you are dealing with awkward source material, which is part of how the Avenger’s worked so well. When you have something ridiculous to work with, play it like it’s funny, because it is.

The truth is, John Carter, outside of having an impossibly dumb title and ridiculous premise that’s hard to sell, really should have and could have been a majorly successful franchise. The trouble is that the story takes on too much and quickly gets bogged down in long winded political intrigue, side stories, and a vast array of important characters with too little to say or do. Except this cool CGI dog thing, that thing was amazing. In other words this movies suffers from the same disease that all other adaptations of novels suffer from: getting too much information into the form of a coherent and entertaining 2 hour movie. I still had fun watching it though and so would a lot more people if they had seen it. It’s a shame really.

I give it 3.2 little green alien babies