Who didn’t have the Batman Forever glasses at some point? While the movie itself is terrible, the Batman Forever glasses were excellent purchases, and we didn’t mind buying them. My brother had Robin, and I of course had Batman.
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I really can’t imagine a film like “The Land Before Time” being released today. As a kids film it teaches about strength, courage, and the willingness to look for hope in darkness. But as a film in general, director Don Bluth offers a story drenched in sadness, terror, and an almost endless amount of sadness. “The Land Before Time,” like much of Bluth’s work, has held up monumentally well over the year with a beautiful eye for detail, painting a massive world on the threshold of evolving in to something new, while also losing much of its own species to death and turmoil.
The Mighty Ducks (1992)
The Mighty Ducks (1996) – B+
The Mighty Ducks movie was a variation on “Bad News Bears,” where a cynical businessman is tasked with coaching a group of loud and obnoxious hockey players. Over the course of the movie, he turns them in to a winning hockey team, while their sequels chronicle their battle for championships and working as a team to conquer personal villains. So what to do with the spin off?
Focus on a team of alien ducks! Of course! The Mighty Ducks focuses on a group of intergalactic space ducks who crash land on Earth. When they’re discovered by a human, he manages them and agrees to hide their identity as they become a popular hockey team. Meanwhile they’re really superheroes who fight aliens from other worlds. The show is one of the last of Disney series that stopped trying and is a welcome show with a fun concept, and a killer theme song. It’s worth its cult appeal.
We’re admitted Disney-philes who spent many years watching anything Disney served its fans. Even at our age, we’re still very invested in almost anything Disney creates, and growing up in the nineties, we spent many afternoons watching Disney animated series. Most of what Disney gave fans in the realm of animated series were shows based off of their hit movies and classics, so fans interested in seeing more of their beloved cinematic characters had the chance to see more from them in televised form. While they weren’t always home runs, they were surefire animated shows that could never quite be compared to modern animated series. Here are our thoughts and grades on TV Spin offs that stem from Disney movies.
What does “Hunchback” teach the audience? Whether you’re gorgeous or ugly, if the hot girl says you’re cool, you’ll become the hero. Also, the nice guy always finishes last. Surely Quasimodo rides off in to the sunset with his crowd of supporters in the end, but who is Esmerelda going home with later that night? “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” is a bastardization from Walt Disney, where they take the tragic and brilliant tale of Quasimodo and water it down so much it’s barely an adaptation when we see it in animated force.
One of the worst things about fiction is bad exposition. It’s pretty clear from the beginning that “Ancient Evil” probably wanted, but couldn’t afford an entire shot of archaeologists discovering the evil mummy of the film, so we have to have an opening shot of a group of doctors discussing the mummy. One doctor even tells the other doctors where they found the mummy. That’s just bad writing. Why would she reiterate what they already know? Clearly, it’s for the audience.
Like the original film it stems from, “Come Out and Play” offers the question “Who Can Kil a Child?” If your seven year old cherubic daughter was trying to murder you with a hammer, could you kill her? Laugh all you want, but if it comes down to me, and an evil eight year old intent on hacking me to death with an axe, I’ll gladly bring the child down and any other evil children trying to murder me with a machine gun.