Product: The Rescuers Down Under [VHS] (1990)
Rating: 5.0
Mice in the bush
Astonishing animation, vivid color, rich evocation of the Australian outback and its animals, humor, suspense, a stirring Bruce Broughton score, sympathetic heroes and a great scary villain--this undeservedly neglected movie is one of the best of the post-Walt era. Cody (Adam Ryen), a young boy who lives with his widowed mother outside Mugwump Flats, is friends with all the animals, and when Marahuti, the Great Golden Eagle, is caught in a poacher's trap high on one of the red-rock monoliths of the area, they call on him to rescue her--having hands, "you're the only one who can help her, little friend." He succeeds, and makes a majestic lifelong friend--but when he tumbles into a pit-trap set by the poacher, McLeach (for whom respected actor George C. Scott provides both voice and physical model), he finds himself in great peril. Fortunately his capture has been witnessed by a bush mouse, and word flashes halfway across the globe to the U.N. headquarters of the Rescue Aid Society and its two leading lights, Miss Bianca (Eva Gabor) and Bernard (Bob Newhart), the latter now the official U.S. delegate to the Society. Recruiting the albatross Wilbur (John Candy), and later the savvy kangaroo mouse Jake (Tristan Rogers), who serves as their bush guide, the pair set off to save him. Meanwhile Cody and the other poached animals, including the comic frilled lizard Frank (Wayne Robson), are doing their best to escape McLeach's stronghold on their own. Much of the charm of the movie lies in the way the production designers have imaged a mouse-sized civilization--the difficulties it would face in a human-scaled society, how it would use the artifacts cast off by the big people--and in the relationship between Bianca and Bernard (who has an engagement ring in his pocket, and when Jake and Bianca are inadvertantly captured, finds a rugged courage--"I've got to get somewhere in a hurry," he tells a razorback hog 10,000 times his size as he stares it down, "and you're not gonna give me any trouble!"). Even better than the original (The Rescuers), this is a Disney movie that should be in every family collection.