The Great Mouse Detective

This turned out to be a surprisingly good movie!  I'm not sure why it didn't turn out to be a bigger hit.  I know I watched it when I was little, but it was never one of the major Disney movies.  I think when it came out it was better than what had previously been around, but it got shown up by the later films of The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.  We both really enjoyed it this time around, though.

This movie is really a Sherlock Holmes story, but with mice instead of people.  The characters are very clearly based on the Sherlock Holmes characters, and there are even images and shots of people that we are supposed to believe are probably the real Sherlock Holmes and Watson.  There are a lot of cute, references to it throughout the film - some subtle, some obvious.

The Great Mouse Detective really had a lot of action.  There was always something happening, which was fun. I thought it was also pretty clever in terms of plot.  Sure, there's some stuff that unbelievable, but that's because it's a movie!  And a cartoon, at that!  The craziest part was when they actually escaped from the mouse trap that they were in... but in many ways that's what Sherlock Holmes was all about.  Figuring out things down to a T at just the right moment.

The Music
I felt like this movie had such great potential to really be a wonderful Disney musical!  It had a great, show stopping song that was perfect for the villain... and that was it.  If it had more songs in it I think this movie would really be a top contender.

The Villain
It feels like it's been a long time since we've watched a movie with a truly evil, horrible villain... but now we've got one!  Ratigan is absolutely awful, and certainly ranks high on the list of villains.  He has absolutely no problem killing off his henchmen for insignificant reasons.  He tries to take over the country and kill the queen. And he's absolutely insane, as evidenced by the way he goes from "animal that acts like a human" to "just plain animal" by the end.

The WDW Connection
Again, this film's been neglected in the world.  There's no connections that I can think of - let me know if you know of any!

My rating:  8.5 out of 10
Jason's rating:  8.5 out of 10