Movie: The Great Mouse Detective
Release year: 1986
My reaction: I don’t think of this as being one of my standard Disney favorite movies, but I really like it. Maybe partly because I love Sherlock Holmes, so I enjoy all the little references. But this is just a great movie.
It does have some of the scariest moments of all the later Disney movies – Fidget is responsible for most of them, from being illuminated by a flash of lightning in the window, to bursting out of a doll’s cradle, to dressing up as Olivia. He’s terrifying. BUT, he’s also goofy.
So is Ratigan, the villain, played by Vincent Price. I mean, he’s scary, and he has a giant pet cat to whom he feeds everyone who irritates him. But he also has plenty of little moments where he’s flawed, fickle, and funny. If The Black Cauldron felt like Disney starting to figure out what the next couple decades was going to look like, then The Great Mouse Detective is Disney feeling confidently along that path.
Drew theorizes that the reason that this movie didn’t become a huge hit is that it came out the same year as An American Tail. Which EVERYONE saw. Right? Can you sing me at least three songs from An American Tail? I bet you can. Can you name a single song from The Great Mouse Detective? Oh well.
The awesome thing about today is that it’s June 30 – halfway through 2014. And with The Great Mouse Detective, we have officially watched half of the Disney movie list!
The Cameraphone Diaries 