Taron y el caldero mágico

There were many good things going on in the Black Cauldron. First, there were NO SONGS, which really helped move things along. Second, the villain was truly frightening, the supporting cast was a lot of fun, and the movie's breakneck pace held my interest and entertained me throughout. But, there were some bad things as well. Taran wasn't really a character at all. Every important thing that happened to him was by luck or accident. And at the end of the story he's right back where he started. Also, the plot was little more than a succession of action sequences, with little sense holding it together. The heroes simply fell out of one situation into the next, perhaps the result of squeezing two full-length novels into one movie. And don't get me started on the ending. Our hero stumbles through the picture so that -- his furball sidekick can become the true hero of the piece. Yech. Still, I was entertained, and I'd see it again. But for those looking for the REAL Black Cauldron, read "The Chronicles of Prydain" by Lloyd Alexander. You'll be glad you did.

"The Black Cauldron" certainly doesn't fall into the genre of animated Disney family favorite, but instead feels much like the more grim and complicated fantasy films that were made in the eighties. Does it stack up to such films as "Return To Oz" and "The Dark Crystal"? Well, although not as complex as the aformentioned, this film is not without its charm.

The story of Taran, the pig-keeper's journey from gawky boy to gawky boy-hero apparently works better as told through the course of five books, and indeed it is the plot that feels put together, with a lot cut out of it for it's slim 1:20 running time. Also suffering because of the short time is any character development, or a reason why the charcter of Dallben (an old minstrel) are in the film at all. However, this film still has a lot going for it.

The film has a wonderful pacing to it with some fantastic action scenes. It is adventurous and fun. An engaing film for any fantasy fan. What really makes the film though is it's terrifying and dastardly villain, The Horned King. He is basically a Skeletor knock off with absolutely no sense of humor. He looks like he stepped right out of an Iron Maden album cover, and that is a monumental good thing. The true threat felt by the presence of this decidedly un-Disney character keeps the tension of the film high.

It is this contrast, between the unconventionally ghoulish villans (definatly enspirered by Bakshi's animated adaptation of "Lord of the Rings") and the stock Disney characters makes the audience care more-so for the cutesy characters than usual. This is especially true for the cutsey character of Gurgi, who is much more tollerable than almost all other Disney sidekicks and especially more tollerable than a certain J*r J*r B*nks that we have all been over exposed to lately.

So I would recommend "The Black Cauldron", it's a fun and well animated adventure film. Compleatly scary and strange for Disney to make, but still very very good for other reasons nonetheless.

"The Black Cauldron" provides us with "Exhibit A" of the disorganized nature of the Disney organization from the mid-1970s through the mid-80s. The company's feature films were attracting smaller and smaller audiences, and no real creative force had emerged since Walt Disney's death in 1966. By the mid- to late-70s, it was clear that new ideas needed to be tried. The phenomenal success of "Star Wars" appeared to offer a sure-fire way to box-office success: sci-fi/fantasy movies. At the same time, Disney Studio's full-length animated features continued their descent from the heights scaled in 1959's "Sleeping Beauty", at first downscaling the subject matter, then progressing to less and less impressive animation, and finally combining the first two trends with boring storytelling (see "The Fox and the Hound" - 1981).

It was in this context that pre-production began on "The Black Cauldron" in the late 1970s. From an artistic standpoint, its goals were two-fold. First, the film was to recapture the lead in animation quality that Disney had traditionally held, while the second goal was to incorporate the advances in animation and subject matter made in the 1970s (i.e., playing "catch up"). Some early decisions were good: the source material was top-notch. Lloyd Alexander's "Chronicles of Prydain" are fantastic works of fantasy for the young adult - I loved them as a middle-schooler in the mid-80s, and the choice to film the story in 70mm widescreen harkened back to the glory days of "Sleeping Beauty." Unfortunately, not much else worked. The studio's writers did a terrible job of condensing the first two books of Alexander's series, and we end up caring little for the characters that emerge, or for the plot as it unfolds. Also, the movie's tone is uneven. Overall, the work is very dark and un-Disney, which would've been fine had it been executed better. Further, the grimness of the plot doesn't mesh with occasionally clumsy and earthy attempts at humor, and the character animation fluctuates between sober naturalism and exaggerated, cartoonish mannerisms (stretching ears, gaping mouths, etc.) Still, some of the shots are stunning and rank among the best in the history of hand-drawn animation (e.g., multiplaned exterior shot of the Horned King's castle, beautiful backgrounds within the same, Hen-Wen's capture by the Horned King's creatures). The result of this mish-mash was a box-office flop ($25 million to make, $5 million in ticket sales upon its 1985 release).

In short, see this film for its often-impressive animation and intermittent charm. Be sure to get the newly-available widescreen version on DVD. Bemoan the end of the era of stunning hand-drawn animation (Disney has closed up its shop; "Home on the Range" was its penultimate hand-drawn feature). Don't expect a classic, but appreciate the vision of its artistry - even if the final product didn't quite mesh satisfactorily. "The Black Cauldron" is a noble failure.

Always curious about The Black Cauldron, I finally got around to it after seeing a DVD at the rental store. Despite a lot of grating elements, I ended up liking it overall.

The movie starts off on the wrong foot. The voices come across as recorded at low fidelity, and when combined with the sometimes hard-to-understand British accents, can be somewhat off-putting. Issues with voice and script become even more pronounced with characters such as Gurgi and his Gollum-esquire speech patterns. Indeed, the second time I watched the DVD I threw the English subtitles on, and not just for Gurgi.

Other problems with voicing include an exceedingly dull lead actor for Taran (he simply can't emote), and an overly chirpy female lead for Eilonwy.

Most other elements of the film proved passable if predictable in the Disney mold of plot, hero design, sidekicks, etc. Where it branches out for the better is in avoiding any and all musical interludes and along the way offering some scenarios and graphic effects that are more mature than most other Disney animated feature films (though later in the '90s the likes of The Lion King, Hunchback, and Tarzan would also tangle with mature themes).

Animation is also spectacularly mixed in quality, an odd distinction among Disney films but a distinction nonetheless. Usually solid, there are high points such as external shots of a dark castle or a visceral chase sequence. There are also low points such as unnatural shifts in hair color that overemphasize different environments, or obvious spots where animation was rushed (a rock slide sequence).

Yet for all these lows and highs, as an animation fan I ended up siding with the high points. Many sequences are inviting to re-watch, even if the entirety of the movie may not be. For all the talk of failure that continues to surround this movie, one can see in the film itself elements of a more mature Disney that could have been extremely promising with a more seasoned batch of animators and a world less hostile to PG animated fare.

This is not your average Disney movie, which is full of happy characters and a long line of happy-go-lucky songs. For many years, Disney disowned this movie because it wasn't a box-office hit and was released on VHS/DVD only twice.

One of few PG-rated Disney movies, this one contains no music, and truly scary characters (age-depending, of course). Although characters like the Horned King and his undead army, may frighten younger viewers, the movie's dark side may be appreciated by some children (we forget that they too may appreciate the darker sides of things).The story is slow-moving for a Disney movie, but involving nonetheless. Although it is not the best movie, it is different from their usual gooey-mess of a film, while still having a fantasy-theme and does not seem like a Disney movie whatsoever (in a good way!).