I'm watching the classic Disney animated features these days, largely for historical reasons. I saw them at various times in my childhood, but never had them on DVD or VHS, and I was too old to care by the time the Disney channel came into existence. I've watched half a dozen of them over the past couple of weeks, and have reviews written and ready to roll for Peter Pan, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Song of the South, Lady and the Tramp, and one or two others. I'm going to stick them into the blogger script and set them to appear every third day. You have been warned.
I'm writing these reviews from an adult, modern day perspective. I'm not reviewing them for how much kids will enjoy them (since I'd have no idea), or how good they were in 1953, or whenever they were released. I usually mention the historical value or precedent, but I'm trying to take them on their own terms, as though I'd never before seen or heard of these films. That's hardly fair for most fifty year old films, but these animated masterpieces are largely timeless, and their source material is usually a fairy tale that's centuries old.
My approach is working pretty well so far, though it fell apart with one film. Pinocchio, oddly enough, since I knew too much about the plot, since it's been covered or ripped off so many times in other forms of media. Pinocchio also suffers for an odd reason; by dint of being the best of the Disney films I've seen thus far, in terms of being a complete, coherent movie. The others tend to be somewhat sprawling and undisciplined, or they pad out very simple plots with lots of wacky side kick type characters and comic relief. Pinocchio stays very much on track, and since I knew the track, there were few surprises.
To my surprise, today's film is a prime offender in the wandering, bullshit scenes to serve as plot-filler category. Here's Snow White and the Seven (excessively silly, annoyingly childish, slapstick-happy)
Dwarves Dwarfs.
There are some great, iconic images in the film. The queen with her magic mirror, Snow White singing the birds out of the trees, the seven distinctive dwarves (or dwarfs, as the film calls them), their glittering gem mine, and especially the wicked witch in her old lady disguise/transformation. That's by far the most memorable image in the movie; the wart-nosed crone, gibbering with her shining, poisoned apple. Plus there are three very familiar and instantly remembered songs in the film, and while those type of show tunes aren't really to my taste, I've heard them so many times in so many forms I can't deny that they have some charm.
Unfortunately, the great iconic scenes and music makes up only a small part of the film. Much of the rest of the time is padded out with bad, broad, infant-skewing comic relief. Scores, and then some more heretical commentary.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937
Script/Story: 4
Characters/Performances: 7
Action: 3
Eye Candy: 9
Fun Factor: 5
Replayability: 4
Overall: 5.5
My score is conflicted. There are 3 or 4 great scenes, and some very memorable images. The gem cave, the mirror mirror on the wall, the wicked witch scene with the poisoned apple, the vista of Snow White in her glass coffin, and the chase scene of the Wicked Witch climbing up the rain-lashed rocks as she flees the avenging dwarves is great. Some of the songs are really good, and the overall look is savory.
Sadly, and much to my surprise, the bulk of the movie is sigh-inducing physical comedy scenes that seem to go on forever. I'm sure I laughed hysterically at age 6, but watching it as an adult I was amazed at how childish and slapstick the comedy was, and how much there is of it. This movie is 83 minutes, and at least 50 of them are entirely occupied by Snow White making small talk or cleaning with adorable furry forest creatures, or endless permutations of bumbling dwarves. They are clumsily comedic, falling over, fighting, washing each other, being humorously scared, sneezing with hurricane force, making messes, etc. And it's not like this happens once. There are several long, 8-10 minute blocks of nothing but dwarf hijinks.
True, it's funny when little people fight, but that's only with real life midgets. When they're cartoons it's as funny as it's drawn to be, and in this film I wasn't laughing.
The first long dwarf nonsense takes place from 26-36 minutes, as the dwarves return from work in their gem mine, notice that someone's in their house, and spend almost 10 minutes falling all over each other as they get up the nerve to enter their own home. Then, after 5 minutes of Snow White interaction, there's another 7 minutes, from 41-48 minutes, of more wacky dwarf antics. Snow White sends them out to wash their filthy hands before dinner, and it's just a 'tard fest as they wallow in the water, trip, swallow soap, blow bubbles, rape and humiliate the non-cooperative Grumpy, etc. Then after a cool scene of the evil queen manufacturing the poison apple, we get another ten minutes of dancing musical dwarves after dinner.
None of this stuff is horrible, it's just excessive and silly, and hard for an adult to sit through. I was bored by it and started surfing to pass the time (benefit of watching it on my computer) and soon made my way to
the wikipedia page about the movie. There I learned that this was the first feature length Disney film, that it was fantastically popular at the time (with adults), and that it's frequently been voted as the best Disney film, and sometimes as the best animated film of all time. That perplexes me, but I suppose it's mostly about the history. This was the first Disney film, the first movie length American animation, it's got great animation (though the rotoscoping is obvious at times, especially in the longer shots of the prince walking) and it has 3 very famous songs. The fact that much of the film itself isn't very good is irrelevant.
Just the day before viewing this one I saw Disney's Sleeping Beauty, and there's no comparison. They have essentially the same plot (wicked witch puts animal-charming, singing princess into eternal sleep from which a kiss from her true love prince awakens her), and both have comic relief bumbling sidekicks, but the villain in Sleeping Beauty is so much better, there's much better action and adventure, the climactic battle is great, and the overall tone movie is just much superior. It's like the critical reaction to Snow White is all about potential, or written from half-forgotten memories. The best few sets and concepts in Snow White are great, but there's so much childish filler in between that I can't give it a very good review score, on the whole.
Labels: animation, disney, movie review
