Review of The Rescuers (1977) by Calum B — 30 Sep 2011

I begged for this for my birthday, just so I could relive my childhood, and spent a happy afternoon watching two Disney movies back to back. I didn't really remember the Rescuers that well, as I remembered the sequel Down Under, but as soon as it started, it all came back to me. I remember hating the opening credits when I was young too - the still paintings following the journey of a message in a bottle, is just too slow for a child to sit through.

The Rescuers had the scariest villain, next to Ursula from the Little Mermaid, that being Medusa. Wasn't she scary? It was originally going to be Cruella De Ville, and there are still many similarities beween the two characters, namely the reckless driving and mad hair.

Alongside Disney classics, like Snow White, Bambi, Dumbo, Pinocchio etc, The Rescuers does get a little lost, and it's not the best known of the Disney movies. The reason why some people may not like this as much as the earlier or the later Disney movies is because a new bunch of Disney animators came in at this point, rather than the old lot who were nearing retirement. There are some differences in this movie to the rest of them, the one I noticed was there was a lot of use of still paintings for backgrounds, and it did look very unnatural.

If you've never seen The Rescuers it is one to be picked up, if you want to see something slightly different than normal. It'll never be considered a classic, but I'm proud to have it in my collection.