Movie Review: Balto

Movie Review: Balto                                                                                                                   12-1-16

Before there was a DreamWorks, there was a small animation studio in London called Amblimation, founded in 1989. They made three features: An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, and Balto.

An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, released in 1991, was a sequel to Don Bluth's An American Tail back in '86 (but Bluth doesn't return this time), and was about Fievel and his family moving to the Wild West and meeting his hero Wilie Burp, a dog sheriff who's a parody of Wyatt Earp. While it may not live up to the original, it's definitely better than Bluth's feature at the time, the notorious and ridiculous Rock-a-Doodle. Also, Fievel Goes West had to compete against Disney's Beauty and the Beast at the box-office.

We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, released in 1993, was about a quartet of dinosaurs who get sent forward through time to the 1990s to go to the New York Museum of Natural History. While the film had superb character animation and impressive vocal talents, We're Back! bombed at the box-office: It had to compete against The Nightmare before Christmas, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Schindler's List. I'll give We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story a more detailed review next month in January.

Balto, which premiered in 1995, did better at the box-office, but had to compete against the first Toy Story. The film takes place in Nome, Alaska in 1925, and is about a husky mutt named Balto (Kevin Bacon), who is ridiculed by the other dogs because he's part wolf. His only friends are a female husky named Jenna (Bridget Fonda), a Russian goose named Boris (Bob Hoskins), and two polar bear cubs named Luck and Muck (Phil Collins). When an epidemic fatally effects many children in Alaska, including Jenna's owner Rosie, a bobsled team of huskies goes on a journey to receive the medicine that will cure the disease. However, the dogs get lost, and now it's up to Balto to go on an epic journey to retrieve the medicine and save Nome.

Now what do I think of Balto? Well, it may not be as good as Toy Story, but it's more enjoyable than Disney's feature that year, Pocahontas. Like Pocahontas, Balto is loosely based on a real-life event. However, Balto is much less fantasy-based than Pocahontas, and is a bit more mature. But Balto also has some historical inaccuracies, though these are more minor.

Another thing to appreciate about Balto is the animation. In fact, I think the character animation is more lively than in Pocahontas, despite the latter involving the great Glen Keane. Like how The Little Mermaid had millions of bubbles, Balto probably has thousands of snowflakes.
However, there is one thing that I find strikingly familiar: there's a scene in which Balto fights a grizzley bear, and it's very similar to the bear climax in The Fox and the Hound!

If I were to nitpick at one thing, I think they should've done better work on Steele, the antagonist of the film. He's a bit of a cross between Gaston in Beauty and the Beast and Georgette, the poodle voiced by Bette Midler, from Oliver and Company.

Overall, Balto is an enjoyable treat for the whole family, and is definitely better than Pocahontas.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

What I Think About Disney's Frozen

Note: What I'm going to say next doesn't count as a movie review.
Up to this point, I have reviewed/talked about every single movie in the Disney Animated Canon except for Frozen. Some of you might be asking what I think of the movie. Well, today, I will talk about my thoughts on Frozen, and if it deserved to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

Let's go back to the year 2013, which is considered by many animation fans, myself included, the worst year for animated features.

 

First, in February, there was Escape From Planet Earth, which is Planet 51 in reverse with character designs we have all seen before.

 

In March, there was DreamWorks' The Croods. It's best described as a cross between Disney•Pixar's Brave and Don Bluth's The Land before Time. I'll talk about it later.

In May, there was Blue Sky Studios' Epic. It's not a horrible film, but it's very cliched. In fact, one critic described it as s cross between The Dark Crystal, Fergully: The Last Rainforest, Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, and The Secret of NIMH.

In June, there was Pixar's 14th animated feature, Monsters University. It got mixed reviews, but it earned over 700 million dollars at the box-office. However, by this point, some people, myself included, felt like Pixar lost their magic touch. It wouldn't be until 2015, the year Inside Out premiered, got glowing reviews, and gave Pixar their spark back. My opinion on MU was stated back in this post.

http://asateriale.blogspot.com/2016/03/my-thoughts-on-latest-finding-dory.html

There were two animated features released in July of 2013. The first was Despicable Me 2, from Illumination Entertainment, which earned over 970 million dollars worldwide at the box-office.

The other animated feature that month was DreamWorks' Turbo. It's a bit like Disney•Pixar's Cars with snails, and I remember actually enjoying it more than Cars, because I felt like it didn't have as much filler.

In August, there was Disney's Planes, a spinoff of Cars. I'll talk about that movie, along with three others mentioned in this post, in January 2017.

In September, there was Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2. It's basically Jurassic Park with food animals instead of dinosaurs. Plus, the names for the animals sound like they were copied from Cartoon Network's Chowder, while some of the designs look like they came from Adventure Time.

In November, there was Free Birds, which is basically a cross between Chicken Run and Back to the Future.

In December, there was Walking With Dinosaurs, a hybrid film similar to Disney's Dinosaur (not to be confused with The Good Dinosaur). The animation house behind this film is Australia-based Animal Logic, who also did Happy Feet and Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole.

And finally, on November 27th, 2013, Disney released their 53rd animated feature, Frozen, and if you're counting, their seventh CGI film, and we all know seven is a lucky number. Anyway, the story of Frozen is about two royal Scandinavian sisters: Anna (Kristen Bell) and Elsa (Idina Menzell), and Elsa has the power to control ice. On the day of Elsa's coronation, Anna begs Elsa to marry Hans, a prince she just met, but Elsa says no and shoots icicles out of her hands. She runs up to the top of a mountain, builds herself a castle made of ice, and casts an eternal winter on all of Arendelle. Now Anna, with the help of an ice salesman named Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) and a snowman named Olaf (Josh Gad) to find Elsa and bring back summer.

I honestly have mixed opinions on this movie. While the animation is nice, we have already seen fruitful ice and snow simulation in previous computer animated films (Monsters Inc, the Ice Age films, The Polar Express, and Happy Feet, just to name a few).

Also, I honestly find Hans to be a recycled villain. He's a bit of a mix between Lord Farquad from the first Shrek, Prince Humperdink from The Princess Bride, and Scar from The Lion King. Also, they never explain how Elsa got her ice powers, aside from being 'born with them'.
 I also feel Elsa is a bit recycled, too. She reminds me a bit of Raven from Teen Titans (not Teen Titans Go!) and Phoebe Flame from Adventure Time, except she controls ice instead of fire.

Also, while some of the songs are nice, I feel most of them don't move the plot that much. The only songs I feel like truly move the story forward are 'Do You Want To Build A Snowman' and 'For The First Time In Forever'. I also feel like 'Love Is An Open Door' is a bit of a copy of 'A Duo' from An American Tail.

With all this said, Frozen is actually an important movie for Disney, and not just because of its merchandise sales and record-breaking box-office success. Frozen was the first movie from Walt Disney Animation Studios to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Let's take a look back at previous animated Disney movies and see why they didn't get nominated or win the Oscar for Best Animated Film.
 

2001: Atlantis: The Lost Empire. While the character animation is good for its time, I don't think the Oscars people liked it as much compared to the Disney Renaissance films, and that may be why it didn't get nominated. Also, Atlantis had to compete against Shrek, which earned more money at the box-office and much better reviews.

2002: Lilo & Stitch and Treasure Planet. Both films got nominated, but lost to Spirited Away, which is practically a masterpiece.
 

2003: Brother Bear got nominated, despite negative reviews, but lost to Finding Nemo.

2004: Home on the Range. This film didn't get nominated, but I would rather watch that than Shark Tale, which actually did get nominated.
 

2005: Chicken Little. Didn't get nominated, and that's probably for the best.
 

2007: Meet the Robinsons. I honestly find this film fairly underrated, but I can see why it didn't get nominated. It may have not lived up to the expectations to Ratatouille, Surf's Up, or Persepolis, the nominees that year, but I'd rather watch that than Shrek the Third.
 

2008: Bolt. Disney's first Best Animated Feature nomination since Brother Bear, and definitely showed improvements. However, it was probably no match to WALL-E, the winner that year.
 

2009: The Princess and the Frog. While it was enjoyable for the most part, it was no match to Up or Fantastic Mr. Fox, which also got nominated. Up was the winner that year.
 

2010: Tangled. It's a crime that this film didn't get nominated for Best Animated Feature. This should've been competing against How To Train Your Dragon 1 and Toy Story 3 that year instead of The Illusionist!
 

2011: Winnie the Pooh. Didn't get nominated, and only earned 33 million dollars at the box-office. Perhaps the G-Rating scared older viewers, but single-digit kids will love it. Also, it was only barely an hour long.
 

2012: Wreck-it Ralph. Got nominated, but lost to Brave. Thankfully, Wreck-it Ralph won both the Annie Award and Kids' Choice Award for Best Animated Feature. 

Now that we covered Disney's side, let's look at the four other animated features that got nominated in 2013 for Best Animated Feature.

The Croods

 

When I first saw The Croods in theaters nearly four years ago, I did not like it because I found Grug, Nicholas Cage's character in the film, to be quite unlikable. He didn't want his family to leave the cave because 'it was dangerous'. The only times the family would go outside was when they needed to go hunting for food. Whenever his oldest child Eep wanted to journey outside, Grug would tell a story about a character who died for going outside. Of course gigantic dangerous animals will be lurking around every corner, but humans need to evolve courage, bravery, trust, and intelligence! In fact, because of the fact that Grug kept mentioning death, I wanted him, at one point, to be killed off. Another thing that bugs me is that directors Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMicco made an awkward choice of using made-up animals instead of doing research on real Stone Age animals. I'm sorry if I'm sounding too harsh, but the flora and fauna look like they belong in the Pokemon world. Even Ice Age 1 used extensive research on extinct animals! I know that there are people out there who love this movie, but I'm not too keen of it.

Despicable Me 2

While I personally think Illumination is a bit of a Pixar wannabe, I actually enjoyed Despicable Me 2 more than MU, because it gives more respect to the original. Also, my dad loves the Despicable Me films.

Ernest and Celestine

I already talked about this charming French animated film back in April, part of my Top 50 Best Traditional Animated Films countdown.

http://asateriale.blogspot.com/2016/04/top-50-best-traditional-animated-movies_47.html

The Wind Rises

This is probably the only film that could've served as a real threat to Frozen at the Oscars, and was the final film from Hayao Miyazaki, co-founder of Studio Ghibli and director of My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away. Also, The Wind Rises got glowing reviews in the US, but not in Japan, it's home country. I find that a bit weird.

So, did Frozen deserve to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature? Considering it was a tough year for animated features, and Disney never won this Oscar before, then yes, I do think it deserved the Oscar that year.