This will be my last Disney Review for a while. Now that I can go back to work I'll be going back to my normal 2-3 reviews a week, and I am getting a bit burnt out on all the Disney I watched the past two weeks. That said, this feels like a good review to go out on before taking a break. The Great Mouse Detective is one of my favorite Disney movies, and one I feel is very underrated.
Based on the Sherlock Holmes stories, our star is The Great Mouse Detective Basil of Baker Street. After a toymaker is kidnapped, his daughter finds Basil to find out where he is. You quickly learn Basil himself is incredibly perceptive and intelligent, exaggerated to an extent that fits the rest of the cartoon, but is rather eccentric. Depending on the story, it's actually a pretty good representation of what a Disney styled Sherlock Holmes would be. (Look, I now know that it's based on a children's book called Basil of Bakerstreet, However, all the characters are clearly references to Holmes, and the movie itself is taking a lot of beats from The Final Problem story).
This movie is one of the darker movies I can think that Disney has put out. You straight-up see a murder (Okay, you see the shadow offscreen of it happen, but clearly a man was just murdered) and there are some references to Rattigan, the villain, having drowned orphans at one point. And Rattigen himself is so wonderfully flamboyant. Something you don't often see in musicals is the song and dance numbers actually being acknowledged, and not as some kind of fourth wall joke. The Villain song is so upbeat and merry, is interrupted by said murder, and then Rattigan forces his remaining minions under threat of death to continue singing his praises. It's kind of messed up.
It's also pretty great how he is obviously a rat but is doing everything he can to make himself seem extravagant, noble, and fun. He will get extremely mad when anyone points out he's a rat, insisting he is in fact a mouse. You have this rather strong sense of self-hatred from Rattigan, and his viciousness may well stem from that. So on the surface, he seems to just be fun and evil for the sake of it, but it comes across as much more than that. He is just a wonderful villain.
Then there are the visuals, which are so fun and creative. Seeing the mice interact with the human world in the way they do creates so many fun and engaging scenes. Every scene in the movie looks fantastic, all the little gadgets the show makes use of are enjoyable, it's just a great adventure movie in its own right.
The actual finale of the show is probably the highlight. Yes, it seems like they took a lot from how the final of Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro played out, but at least they were ripping off a great scene. Seeing Rattigan finally lose his cool entirely for this fight really added to the tension as well. It's something the whole movie foreshadowed, so to see it finally happen and actually be worth the build-up was wonderful.
Something else you may notice is how many similarities this movie has to Game of Shadows, the Second of the Robert Downey Jr. Holmes movies. And yes, the way it ends is basically identical, but I give credit to the animated one because the justification I feel made a lot more sense. I won't' say what it is, but if you saw both movies you'll likely know why.
All that said, I really loved this movie. The characters are all fantastic and memorable, the action scenes are some of the best in any Disney movie, and it did a great job at bringing in a darker tone while still feeling like a fun Disney adventure. This is the Disney movie I feel gets the least credit for being amazing. Definitely give it a watch.
Also, while the more regular uploads were fun to be able to do again, I am now back to work at my day job, so I'll once again be back to about two uploads a week. I'll also avoid Disney reviews for a while because I am getting a bit sick of Disney. I've watched eight of these things in the past two weeks. Back to mostly gaming and anime reviews, except Persona 4: Golden and One Piece: Alabasta Arc in the near future.
