Review of Get a Horse! (2013) by Mike N — 28 Feb 2014

There had been talk of this film, dubbed by some "The Purple Rose of Orlando" for some time, and honestly, there was more buzz about this short than the film it preceded (nobody expected Frozen to make nearly the fortune it has, which might balance out the disasterous losses Disney took on The Lone Ranger).

The idea of switching from standard 2-D animation to 3-D computer animation has been done before, but never, the early reports said, like this. More intriguing was the purported use of Walt Disney's original Mickey Mouse voice.

Painstakingly crafted from years worth of old clips (weeks went into just getting Mickey to say the word "Red?" surprised, in reaction to the color of his pants), Get A Horse lives up to even the highest expectations, and is the first Disney film, short or long, to utilize the 3-D glasses to their full potential (the extra 20% ticket price is worth it for this short.

For the feature after...not so much). It's a raucous, slapstick short that brings Mickey Mouse back to his original (much more violent) form, making the classic characters accessible to children too young and impatient to enjoy Steamboat Willie, and paying great respect to the past, both with original voice actors "reprising" their roles, and with little in-jokes like a brief appearance of pro to-Mickey Oswald the Lucky Rabbit; all the while, the film still looks forward, showing that Mickey Mouse can work in 3-D, that the animated short isn't dead (or at least there's other options than Pixar using some new, innovative technique to retread the same "cute" cartoon again and again before each reputation-weakening sequel), and that anyone still decrying the "death" of Disney after three successful CGI films (Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, and Frozen) need simply, to quote Peg-leg Pete's car horn, "Make way for the future!".