Welcome, one and all, to the 100th episode of Reaction & Review! Holy shit, guys...100 episodes. That is something that I thought I would never get to say when I started doing this series. But somehow, someway, I managed to get to this milestone, and I am fucking proud of myself for making it this far. And I want to thank you all for, at least, checking out these reviews. Regardless of how many views these movie reviews get, I am thankful for you guys that have stuck around so far.
So, I should probably explain something before we go any further. Last week on my previous Reaction & Review, I had talked about a tournament that I did back in November involving 8 movies that would be competing against each other to see what would get covered for episode 100. But because of the lack of votes, I had to cancel it. But since at least 2 of the 8 movies got 1 vote, I would put them as a higher priority by making them episodes 99 and 100. And between the two movies that tied with each other, I had to pick which one of these two movies that would end up becoming episode 100. And to be honest, it wasn't really a hard decision. Because I figured that this movie would be the perfect choice for episode 100. And so, for tonight's 100th episode, I'm gonna be covering an animated film from 1994. And it is from legendary animation director Don Bluth. That movie is "A Troll in Central Park".
I'd like to start by saying that I have been a fan of Don Bluth almost my entire life. And out of his entire filmography, not counting the stuff he did while working over at Disney, his animated shorts, or his interactive video games, this is only one of two films from him that I have never seen. And as much as I'd like to say that I'm looking forward to watching this movie, because, after all, it is from Don Bluth, that would be kind of a lie. Because I've heard almost NOBODY saying anything positive about this movie. In fact, out of all of the movies that Bluth put out, not only is this considered the worst movie that he released in the 90's, this is also the worst movie he's ever put out...ever. So, I'm being a little bit cautious going into this movie, mainly because of it's horrible reputation.
Now, while I am going into this movie with a bit of precaution, I also have to consider some of the stuff I've seen Bluth put out in the 90's. I would look at a couple of his films such as "Anastasia" and "Titan A.E.", and I consider those movie to be pretty good, if kinda flawed. I also have to remember that I watched "Thumbelina", which is quite possibly the biggest pile of shit that I've seen Bluth put out. But then there's movies such as "Rock-A-Doodle", which I absolutely adored, because it was such a fun movie to watch. In fact, I've seen "Rock-A-Doodle" many, MANY times, both as a kid and as an adult, and I still watch it to this day. So, Bluth can put out really good films, even if they're not as well received as his work from the 80's. Though, personally speaking, I would consider "Rock-A-Doodle" to be as good as most of his 80's films. But that's just me being rather biased.
So, I'm hoping for "A Troll in Central Park" to, at least, be watchable. I am not asking for it to be good, because, again, of it's horrible reputation. But I'm also hoping for this thing to be better than, say, "Thumbelina". Because, as I stated earlier, "Thumbelina" just flat out sucked balls. So if this movie can accomplish that much, then it's already won me over. But overall, I just want to see if thing is, in any way, watchable. And the only way I'm gonna find that answer, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further do, ladies and gentlemen, for the 100th time, it is time to kick back, relax, and let's check out "A Troll in Central Park".
5 minutes later
Wait, so let me if I understand this. So Stanley grew a huge flower just now, which is causing the troll guards to go and inform the queen. Yet, just a couple of minutes ago, Stanley was already caught when a different troll guard saw a flower being grown from his magic thumb. And in that latter scenario, that troll guard just 'thought' he saw a flower and does nothing about it. I'm just going to assume the queen hired a really retarded troll guard, and it makes me question why she even hired him in the first place?
3 minutes later
You know, guys, I will say that, while the story hasn't really gone anywhere yet, this song here sung by our villain, Gnorga, is not too bad. I know you guys can't hear this for obvious reasons, but this villain song here is pretty decent. So, at least, that's sort of a positive.
16 minutes later
All right, so I have a question, and I might regret asking this later. But is anything interesting gonna happen in this movie? Like, at all? So far, this movie's pacing has been kinda glacial, and I'm not really sure if it's going to pick up soon. I'm certainly hoping that it does. But, as of right now, I kinda have my doubts.
18 minutes later
Guys, I know I briefly mentioned this earlier, but the music in this movie is actually really good. OK granted, the songs aren't amazing, but it's certainly one of the things that is holding this movie together. Everything else in terms of story is kinda shit, and the pacing is still a bit glacial, and yeah...this movie kinda sucks. But...so far, it's still not the worst thing from Bluth that I've seen.
6 minutes later
OK, I have a bit of a stupid question here. So, Gnorga has the power to destroy Central Park, as we've just seen. If that's the case, then why didn't she do that right AFTER they banished Stanley to Central Park? You would think that if she wanted Stanley to be miserable forever, don't you think that destroying Central Park first would've solidified his misery, thus he wouldn't be happy and be able to grow flowers with his magic thumb? I don't know, perhaps maybe I'm just putting a little too much common sense into a children's film.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "A Troll in Central Park". That was a bit of a strange way to end the film, but, oh well, it doesn't matter. I'm gonna shut the movie off...OK. So...what do I start with first? Well, I guess I can start by saying that, going into this movie, it had a horrible reputation of being classified as the worst film Don Bluth and Gary Goldman ever made. And I'm including Goldman in this, because he was the co-director for this movie alongside Bluth. So, when I heard about how horrible this movie was, I was expecting the worst. I was expecting a whole lot of bad things from this movie. But instead...what I got, overall, was an OK movie. It's certainly not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Mind you, it could've been better. My god, it could've been a LOT better. But it sure as hell could've been a lot worse, too. So, you know what? It surpassed my expectations on that end. I was expecting the absolute worst, but I, instead, got a passable children's film.
Speaking of which, before I start this review, I want to start with something that might seem a little bit unprecedented. And I feel the need to address this issue that I have. You see, I've noticed something, in particular, with people who only review animation. Now, I when mention animation, I'm excluding TV shows. Because most people I see in that regard, if not all of them, are just man-children who still bitch about children's cartoon shows in their 20's and 30's. Instead, I'm only gonna be focusing on the ones who exclusively review animated movies aimed towards children. You see, a lot of reviewers I see, mostly on DeviantArt, usually would have a very cookie-cutter style of reviewing. One style, in particular, that I've seen is that somebody would review a children's movie, and they would usually summarize a movie's plot, some in particular would spoil an ENTIRE movie scene by scene, give out their quick lists of pro's and con's, and call it a fucking review. Now, I am not going to question that style of reviewing. Because if that's how some people want to review a movie, that is totally their choice. However, what I've noticed with a lot of people who only review animated movies, whether it's on DeviantArt, YouTube, or whatever, the one thing I've noticed from a lot of these reviewers is that I see almost NOBODY ever try to recommend it for children. Because, whether you liked a children's/family film or not is one thing. However, if you are reviewing a children's film, would you say that a child would like this movie that's aimed towards them? If so, say yes. Or if not, then why not? And I'll give you guys a couple of examples. Even though I didn't care for movies such as "Catnapped!" or "TMNT" back when I reviewed them, I was still able to recommend them for children because, well, children wouldn't notice any of the issues that I had with them. And the same is going to be applied for "A Troll in Central Park". Now, mind you, while I am going to discuss the problems that I had with this movie, I'm still going to consider children in mind for when I get to recommendations, because this IS a children's film, and I have to consider almost every possibility for recommending a movie. But my point in all of this is that more reviewers, specifically those who only review children's animated films, should try to, at least, recommend it for children.
So, with that all out in the open, let's finally talk about the movie itself, shall we? I'm gonna start with writing. I've noticed something with this movie, when compared to other Don Bluth films, that is sorely missing. And that something is known as high stakes. Now in order for me to explain this, I need to compare this with other stories from most of Bluth's movies that came out before this one. In "The Secret of NIMH" Mrs. Brisby was trying to find a cure for her son, because he had pneumonia. And also, she was trying to help the experimentally mutated rats move away from the farm and try to get to Thorn Valley, so that they can live independently instead of stealing human technology to survive. It's a bit of a complicated story there, but it still worked. In the cases of "An American Tail" and "The Land Before Time", both movies had similar plots in where the children get separated from their families, and they had to go through a perilous journey in order to reunite with their parents. "All Dogs Go To Heaven" didn't necessarily have high stakes for, like, the first 3rd of the movie. Because most of that first 3rd was just Charlie getting revenge against Carface, after Carface killed Charlie because he didn't want to share money with him. And most of that first 3rd was just Charlie and Itchy trying to build a bigger and better casino to outdo Carface's casino. Now it wouldn't get serious until the character of Anne-Marie gets involved, and the movie takes a bit of a dark turn from there. I'm not going to spoil the rest of it for the few of you who haven't seen that movie yet. In "Rock-A-Doodle", Chanticleer had left the farm after getting into a fight with one of the Grand Duke's thugs, because the sun came up without him. And the animals on the farm thought that his crowing never really did cause the sun to come up, thus they called him a fake. Well, it turns out that his crowing actually DID raise the sun, and the animals wanted Chanticleer to come back to the farm to apologize to him and help raise the sun again. Otherwise, the entire farm will forever be flooded, and quite possibly the world with it. Again, it's a bit of a complicated story there, but it still worked. So, all of those movies, in some way, shape, or form, had some level of high stakes added to it. And it kept the viewers engaged on what they were trying to tell with their stories.
Unfortunately, I cannot say that about this movie. This movie almost borders on plotless. Which is rather shocking, because I genuinely thought that there was going to be more of a story here. However, that is not the case. The most I can garner out of all this is that our main villain, Gnorga, banishes our main character, Stanley, from the Kingdom of Trolls because he's not acting in the way that most trolls are in that kingdom. He's kind, he loves flowers, plants, he basically loves everything that is nice and happy. Which pisses Gnorga off, because she's the exact opposite of Stanley. She likes people that are miserable, in pain, or in suffering. She was going to turn Stanley into stone at first, but the king instead suggests that they banish him to a place where he would feel misery and that nothing would grow, thus leading him to more misery and suffering. That place, of course, being Central Park. Now, two things I want to bring up involving this plan of his. The first thing is that he thinks Central Park wouldn't be a place to grow flowers and such. Now admittedly, I've only been to New York City once in my lifetime, and I've never set foot in Central Park. But, last time I checked, Central Park is considered one of the biggest parks in all of the U.S. And if I'm not mistaken, most of Central Park is FILLED grass and trees. So I'm pretty sure they were, unintentionally, doing Stanley a favor by banishing him to a place where he can continue to grow flowers and other plants from his magic thumb. Plus, the king also mentioned that Central Park would also have stuff such as steel and stone, and that it would also add to the misery for Stanley. But again, I want to reiterate this: Central Park has tons and tons of grass and trees. The only things you would find there with stone and steel is stuff like benches, lanterns, sidewalks, and bridges. Other than that, Stanley would have a whole field to work with, so I don't see why banishing him to Central Park was a good idea in the first place. Also, and I brought this up earlier on, Gnorga has the power to destroy most of Central Park by being a tornado of sorts. And the thing about that is that it totally worked. But what I still want to know is why didn't she think about doing that first after she banished Stanley to Central Park? That way, Stanley would be subjected to the loneliness of pain and misery. Now, you could write that theory off as Gnorga not being aware of what Central Park is because the king, somehow, is the only one who knows about Central Park and he had to tell her about it. Well, it still would've made sense for her to go "Oh, and by the way, I'm also going to destroy Central Park, just to make sure I get to hear his lovely cries of pain and misery." You know, something like that.
While I'm on the subject of Gnorga, I want to talk about the characters. Gnorga is just a straight-up cartoon villain. And I know that's gonna sound obvious, being that this movie IS a cartoon after all. But what I mean by that is that Gnorga is not really that much of a threat, and ends up being more silly than serious. Now, I'm gonna compare her with the Grand Duke of Owls from "Rock-A-Doodle". Both are very similar in being silly and rather cartoonish. But the difference between Gnorga and the Grand Duke of Owls is that the Grand Duke can actually back his shit up. He wanted to make sure that the animal heroes didn't reach Chanticleer in the big city. He wanted to make sure that Chanticleer didn't want to go back to the farm by being persuaded to not go back. Mind you, it wasn't the Grand Duke himself that was persuading him, it was more so the fox that was Chanticleer's manager that was doing the dirty work. But anyway, the Grand Duke was actually threatening when he needed to be. Plus also, he had some level of charm and personality that made that character work so well. While admittedly, Gnorga does have a little bit of charm to her character, it feels kinda wasted because she doesn't end up becoming threatening right up until she destroys a good portion of Central Park and kidnaps Rosie. But even by then, it was just too little too late, and I just kinda stopped caring about her towards the end of the movie. As for our two child characters, Gus and Rosie, they really don't have much depth to them. Now in Rosie's case, it makes sense. Because she's, like, a 1 year old. And you're really not expecting depth from a 1 year old child. As for Gus, he's mostly just a brat towards his sister, and he's kind of annoying and obnoxious. But then again, as I made mention in my review of "Mirai", a lot children are like that around that age. So, I can kinda give both of our main child characters a bit of a pass when it comes to character depth. Now in regards to Stanley, our main troll character, I've heard from a lot of people that have seen this movie say that Stanley is incredibly unlikable, and that he's one of the worst main characters from any Don Bluth movie. And I'm not totally sure why. OK, I can kinda see him being unlikable towards the climax of the movie. Such as when, on two separate occasions, he pussies out because he thinks that Gnorga is too powerful and that he can't do anything to stop her. Even when Gus goes to Stanley and asks for his help in trying to rescue his baby sister from Gnorga, Stanley still says that he doesn't have the power to stop her. To which Gus calls him a coward because Stanley doesn't believe that he can do it, or some shit like that. So, I can kinda see why some people would think that. Also, I've heard some people say that Stanley is annoying. But honestly, I didn't really find that. Maybe at times he was kind of annoying, but it was very few and far between for me.
So, I can honestly say that, when it comes to the writing, this is easily one of the weakest films from Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. And mind you, I'm saying that it's weak by the standards of a Don Bluth film. But yeah, this film's writing is certainly nowhere near the amount of quality I've seen from previous Bluth films before this one. So, what about the acting? Well, you know what? Even though the writing here is definitely weak, the acting is great. Like, everyone here turns in a pretty good showing. And I'm going to assume that they got actual child actors to voice Gus and Rosie. And if that is the case, then they do a pretty decent job here, too. At least, with what they had to work with. They also managed to bring back the late-great Dom Deluise for the role of Stanley. For those who don't know, Dom Deluise had a hand in most of Bluth's films from the 80's, in terms of voiceovers, such as "The Secret of NIMH", "An American Tail", and "All Dogs Go To Heaven". And while I will say that his performance in this movie is nowhere near his best work in the films that I just mentioned, it's still pretty fucking good. And I enjoy almost anything with Dom Deluise in a voiceover role. And one more mention has to go Cloris Leachman as our villain Gnorga. Even though Gnorga's charm disappeared throughout most of the entire film for me, Cloris Leachman's performance was the one thing that kinda saved her from being a completely bland villain. So, at least, there is that. So overall, I can say that the acting is pretty good, even though none of it is great.
The animation, however, is fucking amazing. This is one of the things that Don Bluth and Gary Goldman always excel at. No matter the quality of the film, the animation for their movies is just spectacular. Everything in this movie is fluid and moves perfectly. The art style is great, including the backgrounds for certain scenes. The color palettes are very good, and the characters are designed really well, too. But again, this is that same kind of animation charm that I've seen in just about all of Don Bluth's movies. Even in his shittier movies like "Thumbelina", and kinda shit movies like "The Pebble and the Penguin", still had that same animation charm. Granted, the latter film didn't have much of Bluth's involvement, but still, I can kinda, sorta count it. But anyways, the animation is just fantastic, and I loved the look of this film.
Sound-mix here is mixed perfectly. As for the music, it's pretty good, too. Again, this is something that, to me, Don Bluth has almost never failed at, which is bringing in good music. Funny thing about this movie, in particular, is that the music in this movie was done by Robert Folk. And the reason why I bring up his name is because he also did the music for another Don Bluth movie, that being "Rock-A-Doodle". Which I thought was pretty cool. Unfortunately, unlike the songs in "Rock-A-Doodle", which I could still remember to this day, I can't say the same thing about this movie. Now yes, I did say that the music in this movie was pretty good, and it is. However, when compared to "Rock-A-Doodle", I'm probably not going to remember the songs in this movie. The only one I can remember by name was the one sung by Gnorga called "Queen of Mean". But even then, it's not a song that I'm gonna remember by the time I upload this review. However, I will say again that the songs in this movie are still good, and the score here is great. Granted, they play more akin to the happiness theme of this movie, which was something I wasn't too big on to begin with, but at least the music was still good. So, I guess I can't complain about it too much.
Ultimately, guys, when all said is done, can I recommend "A Troll in Central Park"? Um...if you have children below the age of 5. Whether it's children of your own, or if it's a niece or nephew, and you want to show them something that's not the same old tired Disney film...then yes, I can totally recommend it on that end. Because I can totally see children below that age range enjoying this movie with no problems whatsoever. However....any child that is above the age of 5...probably not. By that point, you can probably show a child something else. Maybe a different film from Don Bluth. I don't know, something like "An American Tail", "All Dogs Go To Heaven", or "Rock-A-Doodle". I've heard some people say that "The Secret of NIMH" is too dark for children, but I can still kinda recommend it for slightly older children. As for everyone else, well, I obviously can't recommend this to fans of Don Bluth, because most people have already trashed this thing to high heaven. As for me, yeah, this movie kinda sucks. Now is it the worst movie I've seen from Bluth? No. That honor is probably going to stay with "Thumbelina". And the less I think about that movie the better. At least this movie wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Especially after hearing about how horrible this thing was suppose to be. But to be perfectly honest, I've seen far worse from Bluth. I consider this movie to be on the kinda shit level next to "The Pebble and the Penguin". They both have their fair share of problems, but I kinda see myself watching them every once and a while. I'm not totally sure how that comment is going to age unless if I end up trading it in. Because when I bought "Rock-A-Doodle" on DVD, it came as part of a 2-pack that came with "The Pebble and the Penguin". So, I'm kinda stuck with that movie, mainly because I only bought it for "Rock-A-Doodle". As for "A Troll in Central Park", I bought this movie as a standalone film. So, there's a higher chance of me trading this movie in. But I might give it another watch to see if the charm is still there or not. But regardless, the film isn't great by any stretch of the manner, but it could've been far, far worse. And you know what? I'm kinda in the mood to marathon some of Bluth's movies. I might start with "An American Tail", because it's been a while since I last saw that movie. And I might follow it up with "All Dogs Go To Heaven" and "Rock-A-Doodle" afterwards.
And with that, guys, episode 100 of Reaction & Review comes to a close. Man...just coming this far with this series is nothing short of amazing. And I might end up going another hundred episodes. But we'll see how far I can take this series. For now, though, take care, guys, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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