The Black Cauldron (1985)

The MPAA rating for this film pretty much says it all- PG. PG? A Disney animated film? Really? Watching this film, the rating makes perfect sense but you have to wonder what the Disney crew was thinking. The fantasy genre has always been kind to the House of Mouse but for all its light, fluffy components, The Black Cauldron gets so dark at times that it is no longer recognizable as a Disney film.

Taran is a young assistant pig-keeper in a faraway land. His life changes dramatically one day when the sorcerer Dallban orders him to protect a magical pig. The Horned King seeks the pig because its powers as an oracle will lead him to the legendary Black Cauldron. If the Horned King succeeds in acquiring the cauldron, he will raise an army of undead warriors to destroy all those who oppose his ruthless will. When Taran fails to keep the pig from the Horned King’s minions, he sets out to reclaim the pig and defeat the Horned King if necessary. His path is beset by danger on all sides but a cast of colorful characters help him along his quest.

This is a very strange blend of ridiculously cheesy and dark fantasy. The film is adapted from the first two books in a fantasy series that I’ve never even heard of before. While the source material may have won a few awards back in the 1960s, whatever magic the pages held didn’t make the transfer to film. Maybe if I knew more about Welsh mythology the names wouldn’t all seem so outlandish and silly.

Taran is a fairly milquetoast fantasy lead and his only special quality is his determination. His success is largely due to the people and things around him. This kind of overly lucky hero archetype never sits well with me. Then of course there is Princess Eilonwy, whose appearance looks like an amalgamation of the costumes and features of the best Disney Princesses. The Horned King is menacing and frightening to look at, but his motivation in finding the Black Cauldron is pretty thin and recycled. Maybe it’s the current era’s effect on me, but I need my villains to be more complex than simply trying to take over the world.

The saving grace of this film is the animation. It’s complex, rich in detail and even stunning at times. For such a strange world, the animating staff really creates some immersive work here. That makes it all the more of a shame that this film get dark to the point of being un-Disney. I can appreciate the animation but after 24 films, Disney has crafted a very specific ‘type’ for its products and The Black Cauldron does not fit that type.

Fantasy fans and anglophiles may be more into this film than I am; I don’t know if it was marketed towards any specific demographic. What I do know is that this film could easily stain the reputation of Disney in the minds of unsuspecting parents. There is a reason why this, Disney’s first PG-rated film has been all but forgotten about. Despite my displeasure with some of the 1940s package films, the dark nature of this film makes it the least enjoyable Disney film as of its release in 1985.

RATING: 3 out of 5

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Nineteen years after he rode off into the sunset, Indiana Jones returns to the big screen once more, for better or for worse. Older, slower, greyer and less agile, Jones is still keeping with his professor-by-day-adventurer-on-the-weekends antics. It’s not as easy as it used to be, but he’s still got plenty of sass, spirit and grit to dish out to those who stand in his way.

As a longtime fan of the series, I was always going to enjoy this film. It’s Indiana Jones we’re talking about here. The real question is how much I was going to enjoy it. The answer is “just enough.” At the very least, an Indiana Jones film needs to be bright, loud, exciting and humorous. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull accomplishes this well enough but it meets only the bare minimum of those requirements. When the best thing you can say about an Indiana Jones film is that it’s an Indiana Jones film, something’s gone wrong.

Kingdom suffers some of the same problems that plagued Temple of Doom. First, the artifact driving the events of the film isn’t one many people are familiar with. Crystal skulls, though now mostly dismissed, were once objects of great mystery. The film ups the ante and gives them supernatural capabilities, which is why the bad guys are out for them.

The villains in this film are, much like Temple of Doom, somewhat underwhelming. While the Soviet Union was certainly scary back in the day, it’s hard to be intimidated by them as villains because we know how the Cold War turned out. The Cold War itself was a big anticlimax in the end, so the Soviet threat in this film was much of the same. Maybe it's because the Nazis actually did something with their military might. Granted, it’s also an Indiana Jones movie, so you know the bad guys won’t win. The other problem with the villains is that there really isn’t much character development behind them. They’re there, they’re bad, and they’re there often enough to reinforce that they’re bad.

Also similar to Temple of Doom, there is less globe-trotting and more action sequences that hog up too much of the spotlight and are over the top. Part of the fun of Indy flicks is seeing lots of exotic locations. Here, we’re treated to two American locations and the Amazon. It’s not quite enough diversity for my liking. The long chase and fight sequence in the Amazon rain forest overstays its welcome and becomes increasingly absurd the longer it plays out. The opening scene has its share of flaws as well, which is a shame because the opening scene always helps set the tone for the rest of the film. After Indiana Jones hides himself inside a lead-lined fridge to protect himself from a nuclear blast, my expectations were sufficiently lowered for the remaining 100 or so minutes.

The big action sequences bring out one of the problems inherent to Kingdom itself. Being the modern age, stunts are now bigger and flashier, often using lots of CGI to pull off the most dangerous parts. While an attempt is made to have the stars perform many of their own stunts, there is a noticeable amount of CGI present. These kinds of effects weren’t around for the first three installments, so the abundance of effects shots in this film is jarring at times. Sometimes it felt like they were trying to do too much while combining real actors and digital effects, making the CGI work very obvious and not up to par.

The writing is probably the weakest in the entire series. There’s plenty of wit and wisdom being thrown around but there are also times when it seems like the actors weren’t really sure what to do with their lines. Lucas helped with the screenplay and after the uninspired dialogue of the Star Wars prequels, it’s no wonder his mediocre writing skills show through.

Another thing that irritated me a little was all the references to Indy’s age. Harrison Ford himself requested there be more references to Indy’s age and fading abilities throughout the film but it became something of a running gag that didn’t sit well with me. Perhaps it’s because, subconsciously, we find something very wrong about seeing out heroes get older. The first three Indiana Jones films were made over a nine-year period when Harrison Ford was young and vibrant. Ford hasn’t lost his any of his charm and grit but seeing wrinkles and grey hair on our beloved hero is sobering. Heroes are supposed to be timeless, making James Bond’s continual reinvention every so often seem all the smarter. Such a recasting would have been inconceivable, so credit must be given for making the most out of what the filmmakers had available to them.

In the end, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is one part reunion (seeing the return of Marion Ravenwood) and one part continuation of the action-adventure saga. Thankfully, it does not appear as if George Lucas and Steven Spielberg intended to use the film as a launching pad for spinoffs focusing on young star Shia LaBeouf. While the door doesn’t entirely shut on the possibility of yet another sequel, the film ends on a note that could signify the end of the Indy era.

I think that most fans of Indiana Jones never really wanted there to be a fourth movie. Instead, I think that many of us were simply in love with the idea that there could be a fourth movie. Upon receiving Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I think there are a number of us who wish we could give it back, myself included. It’s the weakest in the series and may undermine some of the magic of the original three but it is another dose of Indiana Jones, which can’t possibly be a bad thing.

RATING: 3 out of 5