Chris Williams (16) (1968–)

Part "Truman Show", part "Homeward Bound", and with just a soupçon of "Taken", this Disney film is rightly credited as the precursor to the Disney Revival (much like "Great Mouse Detective" was for the Disney Renaissance). It's charming, cosy and fun. My main complaints on it are all just that it's very good at everything, but great at very little. It's got pathos, but doesn't pack quite the emotion required to be truly memorable, and while funny, it's not sufficiently so to be a great comedy, either. A huge accomplishment breaking out of the slump of the half-decade of production that preceded it (Brother Bear, Home on the Range, Chicken Little, Dinosaur, The Wild and Meet the Robinsons, all ranging from very forgettable to outright bad), it might not go into the history books as one of the big Disney accomplishments, but it certainly paved the way for other films which did.… (more)

The story is a bit bland and by the numbers, and while perfectly fine, as a result this is not really in the upper echelon of Disney films in my book. The music, though, is very good and incredibly catchy, and really lifts the film from the large "decent and OK" crowd of animated film, to being among the few that stay with you and feel quite memorable. It's still not in league with Disney's best offerings, but after nearly a century of animated feature film output, that might be an unreasonably high bar to ask it to clear. It's better than most, it's good fun, and I've bought the soundtrack.… (more)