THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER: Of Sequels, Impractical Organizational Structures, and Saving Wilderness

The Rescuers Down Under (1990) – The 29th Walt Disney Animated Classic – Directed by Hendel Butoy and Mike Gabriel – Starring Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor, John Candy, Tristan Rogers, Adam Ryen, George C. Scott, Frank Welker, Wayne Robson, Russi Taylor, Bernard Fox, and Douglas Seale.

I love RESCUERS DOWN UNDER.

It is, however, a bit of a forgotten movie inside the Disney catalog. It is the most under-appreciated and under-performing of all the Disney Renaissance movies, and for good reason as it’s the most understated of all the Renaissance movies, too. There’s no sweeping songs, no re-imagined fairy tale, and no groundbreaking animation. In short, it is largely exactly what the other Renaissance movies are not. What THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER is, however, is a really good, really engaging sequel. It’s fun and harmless and while there are some story issues (there should be more of the actual Rescuers in the movie), none of it negatively impacts my enjoyment of the film.

It takes too long to get to the Rescue Aid Society, and then once we get there, we still have longer to go to have the missing Bernard and Miss Bianca (Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor) show up. Even though this takes “too long,” though, I don’t mind because the opening story of young Australian boy Cody (Adam Ryen) saving the trapped golden eagle Marahute (Frank Welker) is so enjoyable to watch.

And then when Bianca and Bernard do show up, they are as charming and wonderful as ever, so the wait totally pays off.

Likewise, it’s sort of maddening how Cody himself gets trapped by the poacher McLeach (George C. Scott) IN AUSTRALIA and the Rescue Aid Society is still IN NEW YORK. The producers could have easily just said Miss Bianca and Bernard were on vacation in Australia and no one would have batted an eye, but nope, they’re in New York, which means the message for the Rescue Aid Society requesting help has to travel to the other side of the planet. Even thought this also takes “too long,” I don’t mind because there’s a very clever, “moving arrows on a map” sequence that shows how the message makes that trip. It gives DOWN UNDER a bit of an Indiana Jones vibe, even though Bianca and Bernard are as far removed from Indy as Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor are from Harrison Ford

It’s good stuff, and while any film made by Americans and set in Australia runs the risk of turning into an amalgamation of Crocodile Dundee and ads for Outback Steakhouse, the “Australianness” of DOWN UNDER never overwhelms me. I had my fears when Jake (Tristan Rogers), a kangaroo mouse wearing Pete Postlethwaite’s costume from the second Jurassic Park movie, arrived on the scene, but he never overwhelms the narrative.

There’s a simple, but strong pro-environment message in DOWN UNDER, which can be reduced to: “Don’t kill wild animals.” There’s a couple scenes with the animals trapped in McLeach’s compound that’s clearly designed to make kids realize where bags and shoes come from. This is another part of the movie that should annoy me – there’s really not a lot done with these trapped animals except to give Cody someone to talk to while he’s in captivity. They help to further McLeach’s evilness, but that’s never really a question. Despite not really contributing much to the film, these captive animals are more positive than negative.

Sensing a trend? RESCUERS DOWN UNDER makes these little blips such a part of the overall story that they end up working for the film. One blip might feel like a mistake, but several makes it feel like a style.

McLeach is drawn without any ounce of goodness in him, and for pure evil, he’s one of the all-time bad guys in the Disney canon. He’s mean to everyone, and doesn’t just kidnap Cody but plants the kid’s backpack in croc-infested waters to make it look like they ate him. Think on that. This is a bad guy who’s willing to let this kid’s mom think her son died just so he can trap a bird. He wants to capture Marahute because she can make him rich, and to ensure that her value as a rare creature is maximized, he lowers Joanna (his pet goanna) to the eagle’s nest to eat Marahute’s three baby eggs. This is also a pretty good sign that McLeach is not a long-term thinker.

Luckily, Joanna doesn’t succeed because Bernard is down there already. He hides them, and then convinces Wilbur (John Candy) to sit on them until they hatch.

Yeah, John Candy … George C. Scott … Bob Newhart … Eva Gabor … even though DOWN UNDER was only released just over 20 years ago, it feels like a much older movie if you know the voices. And being such a simple movie, absent of any strange-looking villains

The animation in DOWN UNDER is pretty spectacular, too, but not in an eye-popping manner like Beauty and the Beast or in a dazzling manner like Tarzan. DOWN UNDER’s animation is clean and efficient. There are a few really gorgeous sequences – the long tracking shot at the start of the film and Marahute giving Cody a ride on her massive back are the most standout – but every scene here just feels meticulously put together by the animators.

As I said up top, I love RESCUERS DOWN UNDER. While not one of the all-time great Disney movies, this movie would get a lot of spins if I had kids. It’s got a great message, it’s got great characters, it tells a solid story, and it’s a visual treat. Much like 2011′s Winnie the Pooh, DOWN UNDER’s ambitions are clearly lower than something like The Lion King, but that shouldn’t deter you from giving it a watch. Not every film needs to be a blockbuster; sometimes, simply being a good film is enough, and on that score THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER delivers.

__________

Stuffed Animals for Hire: The Christmas Operation and all characters, stories, and artwork copyright Mark Bousquet 2012.

My latest book, STUFFED ANIMALS FOR HIRE: THE CHRISTMAS OPERATION is now available for purchase in PAPERBACK and KINDLE formats.

SAFH is a kid’s book, but it’s also a tribute to the television shows I watched as a kid: The A-Team, Magnum PI, Knight Rider, Hardcastle and McCormack, Riptide, Dukes of Hazzard and generally any show where Post and Carpenter did the music. Recommended age? If you let your kid watch superhero cartoons or Knight Rider reruns, SAFH should be age appropriate. Here’s the back cover description:

Jurgen the Gorilla. Throne the Lion. Bronze the Golden Eagle. Ray the Brown Bear. Bottle the Dolphin. Dev the Lynxwoman. 3 the Triceratops. Ptera the Pterodactyl. These eight stuffed animals make up the Return Squadron. For seven months they have worked together to return disconnected stuffed animals home. But now … on their final mission, the Return Squadron seek to steal the legendary Map of Everything. Before Christmas morning arrives, three of the Squadron will turn traitor, four will be stranded, and one will never see another Christmas.

THE MUMMY: No Harm Ever Came From Reading a Book

The Mummy (1999) – Directed by Stephen Sommers – Starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo, Oded Fehr, Kevin J. O’Connor, Patricia Velásquez, and Bernard Fox.

When I first became aware of THE MUMMY, I dismissed it as an Indiana Jones knock-off starring an actor I didn’t like – why should I bother with watching a film like that?

Because, dummy, you never know how good a movie is until you watch it, that’s why. After dismissing THE MUMMY, I finally watched it when I bought a 2-DVD pack of THE MUMMY and THE MUMMY RETURNS that has been improperly marked for sale at Wal-Mart for $10. Maybe $15. I’d heard enough good things about the film at that point that I was willing to take advantage of a corporation’s pricing error.

Happy day for me.

Not only do I enjoy THE MUMMY and its sequel (we’ll talk about MUMMY 3 a few reactions down the line), I would go far as to say that if, by some odd plot contrivance of the universe, I could only watch Indiana Jones movies or MUMMY movies for the rest of my life, I’d pick the MUMMY movies. Blasphemous? Perhaps, and I don’t want to turn this into an Indiana Jones vs. MUMMY debate (though I realize I just did), but THE MUMMY films are just pure roller coaster fun from start to finish.

THE MUMMY opens with a decidedly fitting and gruesome prologue in which the Egyptian high priest Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) gets caught touching the sexy lady friend of Seti I. Seti is a bit of the jealous sort, and so consigns his mistress Anck-Su-Namun (Patricia Velásquez) to death and puts Imhotep into a sarcophagus filled with hundreds of creepy beetles that will spend the next few thousand years slowly eating him alive.

Yeah, fun stuff. I’ll say this for ancient, evil, magic-wielding Egyptians – they do curses with an awesomely impressive sense of vengeance.

Cut to the film’s present of 1926 and we find the absolute cutest, sexiest librarian in the world knocking over book shelves. Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) is incredibly smart, impossibly cute, and a bit of a klutz. Her brother Jonathan (John Hannah) is a bit unscrupulous and treasure-hungry, and he’s always trying to pawn off trinkets on the museum in order to increase his financial bottom line. He’s got another item for Evey to have the curator take a look at, and this time he’s actually got something extremely valuable – a map to Hamunaptra, the lost city of the dead.

Jonathan reveals to Evey that he “acquired” the map from an American named Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser), who’s currently in the local jail and about to be hanged. Evey is both shocked and a bit turned out by the rough-and-tumble American (a member of the French Foreign Legion), and she buys his life from the Warden in exchange for cutting him in on the profits from the treasure they’ll get at Hamunaptra.

Evey’s expedition isn’t the only group seeking the legendary city of the dead; Rick’s former Legionnaire mate Beni (Kevin J. O’Connor) is also leading a group of American cowboys to the treasure and there’s a good bit of fun between the two groups as they sometimes try to slow the other side down and sometimes work together against various supernatural threats. The cowboys are writ a bit cartoonish, but they’re not so overdone that they hurt the film.

Watching all of this from afar are the Medjai, led by Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr). The Magi are the descendants of the folks who initially put Imhotep into his beetle-infested sarcophagus and they stick around to make sure no one opens up the priest’s prison and lets the Big Bad out.

But, of course, Imhotep gets out thanks to Evey reading from the Book of the Dead. “No harm ever came from reading a book,” she tells Rick when he cautions her against doing it, but she doesn’t listen and Imhotep gets let out. This sequence perfectly illustrates just how much fun THE MUMMY is, blending both the deadly serious (Imhotep’s rebirth) with a knowing sense of fun (when Evey starts reading from the book and spooky winds kick up, Rick dryly remarks, “That happens a lot.”).

Imhotep is all bandages and missing body parts, but he slowly regains his physical form as he kills the American cowboys who discovered the canopic jars that carry Ahnk-sun-Amun’s organs inside of them.

Yeah, I don’t get it, either, but I’m not an expert on Egyptian curses and flesh-eating beetles that kill you slowly over thousands of years (because as they eat you, they preserve your life?) and keeping preserved organs of a woman in fancy little jars in order to bring her lover back to life.

After Rick thinks he’s killed Imhotep and Ardeth has told him he’s an idiot, all the Americans and Brits run back to Cairo. Imhotep finds them and takes their flesh from them, only running away when he sees a cat. Yup, a cat. Because until he’s fully restored, our Big Bad is afraid of cats, because cats are the guardians of the underworld. It’s another great bit that’s both serious a little bit silly.

While in Cairo, they run into Evey’s boss and the Medjai and learn a bit more about how bad Imhotep is and how the fate of the world is at stake and how they need the Book of Amun-Ra to kill him. Evey sacrifices her freedom by agreeing to go with Imhotep in exchange for their lives. Imhotep double crosses her and sends his brainwashed slaves after them, but Ardeth helps them escape into the sewers, thus earning everyone’s trust that he’s a good guy and all the previous antagonism has been an unfortunate occurrence of circumstance.

This paves the way for the big action-filled conclusion as our heroes face down an army of mummies inside Humanaptra. Evey reads from the Boom of Amun-Ra, which turns Imhotep mortal, and Rick kills him all permanent like. (Well, until they need him for the sequel, at least.) It’s an impressive final battle and a worthy victory. Evey, Rick, and Jonathan ride off with some stolen treasure, though the real prize for Rick and Evey is each other.

Aw, isn’t that sweet?

It is, actually, and Fraser and Weisz deserve full credit for making this relationship work. It would be easy for Rick and Evelyn to come off as simple, cartoonish types, but Fraser and Weisz do a really good job at making them feel like real people. Rather quickly, we learn that he’s more than just the roguish, loud, American cowboy (having three actual cowboys along helps to differentiate him), and Evey isn’t just the sweet, innocent librarian. It’s the small moments, like when she gets drunk or reads from the Book of the Dead, that shows you this is a real character. The same goes for Rick, who might steal a kiss from Evey through his prison bars because she’s hot, but quickly comes to actually like her for more than her cuteness.

Stephen Sommers does a bang-up job keeping everything humming along, blending action and humor on top of a just-solid-enough foundation of pathos. He manages to take a xomic relief character like RAF Captain Winston Havlock (Bernard Fox) and give him a touching ending. Winston is still living in the desert, still pining for the glory days, still wishing he’d found death in battle like his fellow pilots and basically just drinking his pudgy self to death. When Rick needs a pilot to go after Evey, however, Winston is glad to be of service, and he pilots them across the desert. Imhotep sends a massive sand storm after them which ends up crashing the plane holding Winston, Rick, Jonathan, and Ardeth, but all of them survive except for Winston, giving the old pilot the glorious death he so wanted.

THE MUMMY is two hours of pure cinematic fun. I’ve watched it a bunch since that first viewing and it always satisfies. Fraser, Weisz, Hannah, and Fehr are perfectly cast, and Sommers does a perfect job putting them in motion. There’s brilliant locations, a gorgeous visual palette of rich and warm browns, a great villain, and the perfect blend of exciting thrills and honest laughs.

I really love this movie.

___________

THE MUMMY REVIEW INDEX:
THE MUMMY: No Harm Ever Came From Reading a Book
THE MUMMY RETURNS: No Harm Ever Came From Opening a Chest
THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR: Good Going, Dad, You’ve Raised Another Mummy