With the veritable lifetime supply of Disney feature-length films in existence, it?s surprising to think that the three most-popular characters, Mickey, Goofy and Donald Duck, hadn?t all appeared in a feature-length film before the all-new ?The Three Musketeers.? Sure, they?ve had their featurette, movie-short and TV success stories, but never a full-length film.
Naturally, then, when Disney fanatics hear the mantra of ?first film together,? they?re bound to race to the store and pick ?The Three Musketeers? off the shelf. Fortunately, the animated film has a great soundtrack, some seriously comedic moments and a funny backstory (17th-Century France) about how the three heroes found love. But to call ?The Three Musketeers? a full-length film might be a bit optimistic.
Coming in at about 68 minutes, the film feels more like a well-produced holiday special than it does a full-length flick. Having watched Disney?s ?Brother Bear? (read DailyGame DVD review) and other recent animated films, ?The Three Musketeers? seems miscategorized. It?s longer than a cartoon, shorter than most full-length films, but about the perfect length for one of the classic Disney shorts from the 1940s and 50s. And these three main characters have certainly appeared in shorts together.
Yet the film?s length takes absolutely nothing away from its quality. ?The Three Musketeers? is decidedly classic, animated in the style of the Disney Afternoon cartoons from the 1980s and with a plot that fits each character to a tee. Goofy has clumsy missteps that are perfectly in line with his old-school sports encounters. Donald is a coward until somebody insults him, at which point his temper flares worse than it did in his cartoons of yore. Mickey plays the eternal hero, continually motivating the other two to practice the creed of ?all for one, and one for all.?
The story is also so well-paced that learning the film was seven years in the making comes as no surprise. Following in line with Mickey?s traditional unassuming-hero films, ?The Three Musketeers? watches the three main characters go from janitor to Musketeer-in-training and from almost-defeated individuals to triumphant team. Along the way it has some hilarious moments, naturally involving Goofy?s so-called logic but also a few instances where the studio makes fun of its heritage by having characters make fun of Donald?s hard-to-understand voice.
Along with the comedy comes an outstanding soundtrack, but not in the same vein of ?The Little Mermaid? or ?Aladdin.? Instead, ?The Three Musketeers? plays on its 17th-Century environment by sampling music by Beethoven and Tchaikovsky and inserting modern and story-appropriate lyrics. The result is a fantastic mix of old and new, and it in fact makes for one of the best bonus features on the DVD.
The bonus features on the DVD are surprisingly plentiful for an animated short, with four featurettes that?ll seem more than long enough for kids. The first, a sampling of deleted scenes, mixes fully animated sequences from the film with the sketched-out tidbits that didn?t quite make the cut. This subtly shows how films go from pencil sketch to fully inked cel, and it?ll serve as a great icebreaker for parents to discuss the process with kids interested in animation.
The second bonus feature, Music & More, includes a music video from the boy band who performed one of the film?s mainstay songs, but the most memorable part of this feature (if, in fact, not the most memorable part of the entire bonus section) is called ?Disney Song Selection.? This features all the newly lyriced operettas from the film, plus the karaoke-friendly words at the bottom of the screen. Believe me, young and old alike will love these songs, and don?t feel ashamed if you start to sing along. ?The Three Musketeers? is Disney music at its finest.
The longest bonus feature is called Games & Activities. The first section, Opera-Toon-Ity, enables kids to use the DVD remote to select one of three opera settings, then one of three opera singers, before watching the performance they directed play out. In theory this sounds like a great creative outlet for kids, but in actuality, the singers always use the same song, so it amounts to little more than a different ?skin? for the same performance. The classical tune is different in each case, but the identical lyrics make this the weakest feature in the batch.
The Many Hats of Mickey, meanwhile, reflects ?The Three Musketeers? in spirit. On screen are nine hats that Mickey has worn in his traditional roles, be it in a classic short or a full-length film. After briefly explaining the hat and movie, viewers can then watch a 30- to 60-second clip from the film in question. This is a great trip down memory lane for adults, and it?s a great introduction for kids who never saw those films the first time around.
The final featurette, Backstage Disney, includes a surprisingly funny cast commentary for the opening scene with Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Pete, and hearing the cast members comment ?off-camera? about their performance meshes perfectly with the studio?s desire to present the characters as real actors. That desire is further reflected in the ?Get the Scoop? making-of featurette, which includes further comments from the production staff about ?working? with the three Disney characters and how they were so pivotal to the scenes in the film. Along the way, it also includes some great information on storyboarding and production, presented in such a way that kids will learn about movie-making without even realizing it.
At in the end, that?s part of what makes many Disney movies, old and new, so special. Sure, they?ve got classic soundtracks, and of course they have fantastic animation, but they also have worthwhile and heartwarming stories with a moral lesson. In ?The Three Musketeers,? the songs are incredibly creative and catchy, the animation is classic Disney and the moral of the story is to believe in teamwork. The fact that ?The Three Musketeers? is a well-produced movie, even if it?s not feature-length, is gravy. Years down the road, ?The Three Musketeers? is going to be revered as one of the great Disney shorts. If you or your children have any interest in ?traditional? Disney filmmaking, this is one DVD you won?t want to miss.
— Jonas Allen
