My Top 10 Least Favourite Disney Animated Features

   Last week, I listed my picks for the best of Disney's animated motion pictures. But, sadly, with the good must also come the bad. Obviously the stuff flooding the Disney market today leaves a lot to be desired (to say the least!), but even their classic row of fifty-plus trophies has its share of hits and misses.
   So, still sticking with Disney's official line-up of animated motion pictures, these are my picks for their biggest misses. I have to restrict it only to their theatrical works, because if I included Disney's whole library, then the direct-to-video sequels would probably take up the entire list.
   Well, here goes nothing. :) These are my top ten least favourites of the Disney animated features.

#10 = Pocahontas (1995) 

Pocahontas isn't bad, but it is terribly flawed. I guess this was the beginning of Disney trying to start a new trend: taking more mature subjects and making them entertaining for kids. In this case, history. But Pocahontas makes the fatal mistake of sugarcoating it, talking down to its audience. Solving the language barrier through magic, for example. And reducing the leader of the white men to pure greed, I believe needs no comment. For what it's worth, the songs and animation are good, and the moral about prejudice is sound. But otherwise, this movie's just kind of an embarrassment.

#9 = The Three Caballeros (1944)

When it ended, this movie had me wondering, "What the hell did I just see?" It starts out with two short stories framed by Donald Duck opening his birthday presents, and each one is a presentation on Latin America. Then José Carioca (the green parrot) shows up, returning from his debut in Saludos Amigos. Then Panchito the rooster comes to show them around Mexico. And from that point on, it's literally like the animators just got high! :) The animation is consistently good throughout, but this movie really needs to be watched one segment at a time, because watching them all together, it suddenly becomes boring.

#8 = Fun and Fancy Free (1947)

And man, what an appropriate title! :) This is one of the gayest movies I've ever seen! For much of it, there's no conflict at all; everything's just fine and dandy. It begins with a jolly song introduction, setting the tone for everything to follow. The first of its two individual stories, Bongo, is cuteness to the nth degree, but the second vignette is a pretty creative retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk. I've heard that light-hearted fluff like this was just what audiences needed after World War II. But today, I don't know if I'd recommend it to anyone except very young children.

#7 = The AristoCats (1970)

Again, this one isn't horrible, but it's mostly kind of lame. The main characters are complete goody-goodies, which means they couldn't possibly be less interesting. That cheap, sketchy style of Disney animation really stands out here. A lot of the dialogue, Edgar's aside, is groan-worthy. And speaking of which, it's really sad when the villain is one of only two likable characters in the movie (the other being Roquefort the mouse)! And as the icing on the cake, I just do not like these songs. They even somehow suck the coolness out of jazz! My sister really loves this one, but I usually skip it.

#6 = Brother Bear (2003)

The maddening thing about this one is that it actually starts out very well. The first fifteen minutes or so is great, with endearing characters, believable drama and a culture that you can easily become absorbed in. But after the main character gets turned into a bear, everything plummets downhill. The dialogue is painfully modern, and there's one point where they put a song in the absolute worst place possible. So this one really frustrates me in how right it gets some things but how wrong it gets others. I mean, talk about being so close and yet so far!


#5 = Oliver & Company (1988)

By this point, Disney was churning out their animated movies fast – usually one per year. It was mostly quantity over quality, though. Even as a kid, I didn't like this one very much. It's a brave attempt at a contemporary New York-based take on Oliver Twist, but it just never wowed me for some reason. Maybe it's the overly cartoonish style of the animation – I don't know. Even the songs aren't very impressive, despite having Billy Joel on board. Really, this one's most remarkable for coming out the same year as The Land Before Time – which was ironically far more like a Disney movie! :)

#4 = The Rescuers (1977)

I know a lot of people like this movie, but obviously I'm not one of them. I just find it downright depressing to sit through. Not only is the story centred around child slave labour, which is pretty grim for a Disney movie, but something about the animation and overall tone just makes this movie seem very lacklustre to me, which just adds to the depression factor. Even the big escape in the climax has almost no wow factor at all. So, because it's such a major downer, this is another one I'd skip. Now, the sequel, The Rescuers Down Under… that's a different story! :)


#3 = The Black Cauldron (1985)

This is considered one of Disney's biggest flops, and I can see why. It's nice to see them attempt a dark fantasy epic, but it really doesn't suit them. Every attempt at serious fantasy action is undermined by incredibly lame dialogue. Especially, the moment I first saw the fairies is when it was clinched that there was no way I could take the movie in any way seriously! The way I see it, this movie's too frightening for kids and too lame for fantasy epic fans; it doesn't please either. It's the first of the Disney movies that I simply don't recommend.


#2 = Home on the Range (2004)

Disney's 2D animation studio was shut down for a while after this, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was exactly because of this movie! :) This is so unlike the Disney you'd expect that it actually goes beyond belief! It's geared almost exclusively to preschool kids. It tries to throw in some jokes for the parents, but fails. Honestly, this wouldn't be out of place alongside Barney the Dinosaur! Overall, it's not absolutely detestable, but this is undoubtedly the worst of all the 2D Disney movies by far. Unless you're about four years old or less, I'd say this is a definite skip!


But my #1 least favourite Disney feature is… Chicken Little (2005)

This movie… I can't even put it into words! This was Disney's first 3D animated movie separate from Pixar, and it just completely floored me with shock! This is one of the strangest… not even Disney movies, just movies in general! It's bad enough that it's not funny and the animation style certainly isn't for adults. But what really made my jaw drop was the direction the story ended up taking. …Aliens?! Fucking aliens?! I don't know what I expected of a movie called Chicken Little, but it certainly didn't involve fucking aliens! For what it's worth, their ships' cloaking feature is cool (and to say that it's a fresh take on the sky falling is a massive understatement!), but it just makes you wish they were in a different movie. I don't know what else to say. Just… wow is this one bad! In terms of their theatrical animated line-up, this is Disney at their absolute worst.

Runners-up:
• Lady and the Tramp falls flat for me as a love story because I just don't care about these characters. And I can only tolerate one of the songs, too.
• And Dinosaur, despite a couple of really good moments, just isn't that interesting overall. Plus the voice acting is pretty lame.