Disney

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins (2000)

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins (2000)
Rating: ★★
Aug 18, 2000Space Hero/Animation
Video-released spinoff of the Toy Story films featuring Buzz Lightyear in an adventure. Although released under the Pixar name, the animation is all cheaply produced by a Chinese studio
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Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
Rating: ★★★
Jun 15, 2001Disney Animation/The Quest for Atlantis
One of the less successful films of the Disney renaissance of the 90s/00s. Disney has never done well with animated SF. That aside, this a very nicely animated Steampunk adventure
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Lilo & Stitch (2002)

Lilo & Stitch (2002)
Rating: ★★★
Oct 19, 2002Disney Animation/Malevolent Alien Creature
Likeable Disney animated film about a young misfit Hawaiian girl who befriends an unruly alien creature. This has a good deal of oddball energy and humour that makes it rather appealing
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The Country Bears (2002)

The Country Bears (2002)
Rating: ★★
Jan 11, 2003Talking Bear Country-and-Western Band
Another film spun off from a Disneyland attraction, this hardly inspiring effort features a Country and Western band made up of talking bears and follows them as they set out on a reunion tour.
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Treasure Planet (2002)

Treasure Planet (2002)
Rating: ★★
Dec 24, 2002Disney Animation/Treasure Island in Outer Space
Disney animated film that proved a flop, this lazily remakes Treasure Island set in space. The result is bad science-fiction with sailing ships in space, Ben Gumm as a malfunctioning robot and so on
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Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Rating: ★★½
Nov 21, 2003Pirate Fantasy Swashbuckler
Enjoyably tongue-in-cheek pirate swashbuckler based on the Disney theme park that proved an enormous hit and spun off a series of sequels, as well as giving Johnny Depp one of his iconic roles
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Now You See It (2005)

Now You See It (2005)
Rating: ★★★
Nov 24, 2015Teen Magician's Powers Might Be Real
Not to be confused with Now You See Me, the one about the bank-robbing magicians, this is a surprisingly good film for the usual creative wasteland that is the Disney Channel about a reality show for illusionists who discovers a teen whose powers would appear to be real
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The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
Rating: ★★
Dec 15, 2005Epic Fantasy Adventure/Magical Otherworld
The film adaptation of C.S. Lewis's book sought to appeal to audiences for the Lord of the Rings films but between Lewis's heavy-handed Christian allegories and Andrew Adamson's inexperience as a director fails to fly
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Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
Rating: ★★½
Jul 24, 2006Pirate Fantasy Swashbuckler
The second of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Johnny Depp and all the principals are back and much of the eccentric humour is present but the action has undergone budget bloat
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Meet the Robinsons (2007)

Meet the Robinsons (2007)
Rating: ★★★
Apr 19, 2007Disney Animation/Gonzo Future Family/Time Travel
One of the more enjoyable efforts from the mid-2000s dead zone where Disney animation with filled with ideas that left-you scratching your head, this quickly gets demented and emerges like The Jetsons colliding with The Royal Tenenbaums
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Bridge to Terabithia (2007)

Bridge to Terabithia (2007)
Rating: ★★★
Jun 24, 2007Magic World of Childhood Imagination
Made by Walden Media following the success of their The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, a well-made adaptation of a Christian children's book even if it sits uncertainly between gentle realism and the push to make it a fantasy film
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Bolt (2008)

Bolt (2008)
Rating: ★★★½
Jan 11, 2009Disney Animation/Talking Animals
A low expectation Disney animated film that proves an entirely charming winner centred around a dog tv star who believes it is a superhero. In essence, this is a talking animals variant on the Don Quixote story
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The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)
Rating: ★★
Jun 29, 2008Epic Fantasy Adventure/Magical Otherworld
The second of the Narnia films. Director Andrew Adamson seems so intent on copying Peter Jackson that the film becomes all epic fantasy flourishes and battle scenes to the exclusion of all else - even much of C.S. Lewis's book
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The Princess and the Frog (2009)

The Princess and the Frog (2009)
Rating: ★★★
Dec 20, 2009Disney Animation/Animal Transformation
One of the more enjoyable Disney animated films from the latter half of the 00s. Featuring Disney's first Black heroine, this embraces its New Orleans setting and turns Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale on its head with enjoyable results
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A Christmas Carol (2009)

A Christmas Carol (2009)
Rating: ★★★
Nov 14, 2009Miser's Redemption/Animation
Robert Zemeckis’s motion-capture animated adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic. The tale has gone through so many adaptations, it fee;s an uphill battle to find anything new in the story no matter the technical quality of the film
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Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Rating: ★★
Mar 9, 2010Alice in Wonderland Adaptation/Epic Adventure
Tim Burton takes on Lewis Carroll but Carroll gets lost beneath Burton doing his usual quirky eccentric thing and a plot that seems to want to turn Alice's adventures into a modern epic fantasy
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Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)
Rating: ★★
May 28, 2010Videogame Adaptation/Arabian Nights Adventure
Adaptation of the popular videogame that ventures into Arabian Nights adventure, this was a box-office flop. It swashbuckles entertainingly but Jake Gyllenhaal feels badly miscast as a buffed adventure hero
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Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
Rating: ★★
May 20, 2011Pirate Fantasy Swashbuckler
The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is revived for a fifth outing. There is a new director in Rob Marshall but bar an energetic comic opening, he never does much that hits the zany heights of the previous entries
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Frankenweenie (2012)

Frankenweenie (2012)
Rating: ★★
Nov 28, 2012Universal Frankenstein Homage/Boy Resurrects Dog/Stop-Motion Animation
Tim Burton's stop-motion animated expansion of his 1982 short film has a winning concept – a parody of the Universal Frankenstein films with a teenage boy resurrecting his dog
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Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

Wreck-It Ralph (2012)
Rating: ★★★★
Oct 31, 2012Disney Animation/The Secret Lives of Videogame Characters
One of the best Disney animated films in ages. Has the winning concept of the secret lives of the characters inside videogames. Imagine Tron by way of Toy Story. The animators have clever fun with the idea, while the film creates a character arc that become the strength of the film
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The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)

The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)
Rating: ★
Aug 14, 2012Magic Child Appears Out of the Garden
On one level, this sets out to be a warm-hearted fantasy about the appearance of a magic child to a childless couple. On another possibly unintentional level, it is a rather unlikeable film about how two parents continually force a child to conform to the social expectations of those around them
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Frozen (2013)

Frozen (2013)
Rating: ★★
Nov 30, 2013Disney Animation/Fairytale Adaptation
Disney animated film that supposedly adapts Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen, although Andersen wouldn't recognise it. This often feels like a ramshackle assemblage of formula elements rather than the classic it was hailed as
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Saving Mr. Banks (2013)

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)
Rating: ★★★★
Dec 20, 2013The Making of Mary Poppins
Dramatisation of the prickly relationship between P.L. Travers, the creator of Mary Poppins, and Walt Disney during the making of the 1964 film. While the true story may have been cleaned up somewhat, this is a film of enormous charms that is largely made through a triumphant performance from Emma Thompson
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The Pirate Fairy (2014)

The Pirate Fairy (2014)
Rating: ★★
Aug 25, 2015Disney Animation/Tinker Bell Adventure
Another of Disney's Tinker Bell spinoff adventures. This has some slickly produced animation and does some occasionally cute pieces of fanservice that tie in to Peter Pan but is ultimately fantasy being produced for the single digit age groups
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Big Hero 6 (2014)

Big Hero 6 (2014)
Rating: ★★½
Nov 7, 2014Disney Animation/Marvel Comics Superhero Team
Disney animation and Marvel Comics come together; Marvel loses and most of the comic-book is tossed out the window and this becomes a simple story about a boy and his robot story before settling into familiar sueprheroics
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Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014)

Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014)
Rating: ★★
Jul 20, 2014Disney Animation/Talking Aircraft
The second of Disney’s spinoffs from Pixar’s Cars films featuring talking anthropomorphic planes. Like the first film, this is amiable and occasionally cute but lightweight. This is beginning to feel like a franchise that is spinning out thinning ideas solely for its own sake
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Descendants (2015)

Descendants (2015)
Rating: ★
Dec 27, 2015The Children of Disney Villains
This has an appealing premise – the children of all the Disney villains have grown up and go to school together. This is promptly killed by the awfulness of the film itself, which is essentially High School Musical set in the Disney universe
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Tomorrowland (2015)

Tomorrowland (2015)
Rating: ★★
May 23, 2015The Fight to Create a Utopian Future
Despite being another film based on a Disney theme park, I had high expectations of this because of Brad Bird. Alas, the initial promise of a retro-sf work that mainlined the wonderment of Jetsons-styled futurism turns into a surprisingly glum and message-heavy work about how the modern world is a depressing place
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Moana (2016)

Moana (2016)
Rating: ★★
Feb 11, 2017Disney Animation/Pacific Island Mythology
Despite being a huge box-office and critical success and being nominated for an Academy Award, I am in a minority in disliking this. Maybe it's something to do with the fact that it appropriates the culture from my neck of the woods and only spins it out as a series of glib jokes and one-liners
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Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)
Rating: ★★
Jun 4, 2016Alice in Wonderland Sequel
Sequel to the 2010 Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland. This has even less in common with Lewis Carroll's book sequel than its predecessor did – a total of two scenes. The sets and effects are just pretty eye candy
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Zootopia (2016)

Zootopia (2016)
Rating: ★★★★
Mar 12, 2016Disney Animation/World of Talking Animals
A really good Disney animated film set in a world that imagines what might happen if animals lived in cities, this is an ingenious reworking of the talking animals premise that overflows with visual ingenuity and warm humour
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Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
Rating: ★★½
Sep 16, 2017Pirate Fantasy Swashbuckler
After the two last lacklustre entries, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise starts to recover where the two new directors pull off some spectacular comedy-action sequences that go a long way towards recapturing what the series used to be
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Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Rating: ★★★
May 27, 2017Fairy-Tale/Disney Live-Action Remake
This live-action remake of the Disney animated film is mounted with a lavishness. On the other hand, the romance at the centre never fully warms up, while the human characters have the show stolen from under by the cutlery and furnishings
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A Wrinkle in Time (2018)

A Wrinkle in Time (2018)
Rating: ★
Sep 23, 2018Young Adult/Magical Journey Across the Universe
High-profile adaptation of the classic children’s work by Madeline L’Engle that has been entirely wrenched out of shape by its director to become a heavy-handed message about diversity. It is SF made by people who think the genre is just eye candy and absurdly over-the-top costumes
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The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018)

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018)
Rating: ★★
Feb 22, 2019Fairytale Adaptation
Big, no-expense-spared Disney production of the fairytale. The film is stunning to look at it in terms of design and costuming but has a simplicity that leaves little for adults to engage with
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Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

Mary Poppins Returns (2018)
Rating: ★★
Mar 22, 2019Flying Nanny Frolics
Mary Poppins was one of the greatest of all Disney live-action films, made with nonsensical charm and has become a much loved favourite. As part of the ongoing firesale that involves resurrecting almost all of their properties, this is a sequel. Its an exacting replication/homage to the original but that is the problem - it is a recapturing rather than seems to create its own sparkle
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Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)

Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)
Rating: ★★★
May 12, 2019Disney Animation/Videogame Characters Venture Onto the Internet
I had a lot of liking for Disney's Wreck-It Ralph, a depiction of the inside of a videogame from the viewpoint of the characters. This expands the concept to the internet. Despite being the ultimate product placement film, this also rather appealingly shows Disney poking fun at themselves
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The Lion King (2019)

The Lion King (2019)
Rating: ★
Oct 19, 2019Disney Live-Action Remake/Talking Animals
Jon Favreau had success recreating The Jungle Book in live-action with CGI animals and does the same with The Lion King - only to produce an exacting, lifeless replication missing the charms of the original
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Lady and the Tramp (2019)

Lady and the Tramp (2019)
Rating: ★★
Nov 23, 2019Disney Animation in Live-Action/Talking Animals
Another Disney animated film rehashed in live-action. At which the best compliment you can pay this is that it is at least better than the same year's remake of The Lion King was
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Maleficent, Mistress of Evil (2019)

Maleficent, Mistress of Evil (2019)
Rating: ★★★
Jan 11, 2020Sleeping Beauty Continuation
Nobody much liked Maleficent but did make a reasonable amount of money, hence a sequel. The surprise is that in the hands of Norwegian director Joachim Rønning, it is far better than one expected
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Disenchanted (2022)

Disenchanted (2022)
Rating: ★★
Nov 25, 2022Fairytale Characters in the Real World
Enchanted in which Amy Adams played an animated fairytale princess entering the real world was a reasonable hit. This is the long-planned sequel that reunites the principals but feels like a joke that belabours in the retelling
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