"Why do we even have that lever?"

Rating: 8/10 (26 May 2008)

I cannot stand typical Disney movies, and even if they could overcome their lazy, tiresome formulas, there would still be those insufferable stereotypes (Fat people are funny. Skinny people are treacherous. Attractive caucasoid people are virtuous. Ethnic or ugly people are villainous) which Disney distastefully falls back on over and over. The sentimental and schlocky Lion King which allowed them to tell a story about Africa without depicting a single black person was a massive cop-out. First animated black leading man character, Disney? Any time now (...would still be forty years too late)!
"It's too sarcastic?" Take your impressionable and precious little treasures to some other lifeless movie then. But I'll take dozens of movies like this wild card from Disney before I'd ever sit through one of their safe, wholesome family clunkers again.
It is so blessedly free of the Disney formula; no trio of wise-cracking sidekicks, no crappy song about longing for more, no villain (as such) who needs to be defeated in the last 5 minutes. No princess! There's (in other words) no decisions made by the same committee that choked the life out of their last ten movies. If you want that, just rent any other Disney movie. Kronk is a hoot, as is Eartha Kitt. The movie could use a better second act, but really that's a minor complaint after the endlessly schmaltzy, rotten sentiment of Pochahontas, Notre Dame, Hercules, Tarzan... all of which were simply crap.