When the diabolical Professor Ratigan kidnaps London's master toymaker, the brilliant master of disguise Basil of Baker Street and his trusted sidekick Dawson try to elude the ultimate trap and foil the perfect crime.
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Reviews
Best movie of this year hands down!
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
I watched this movie a while ago. Its pretty good. The story and animation are interesting. I always enjoy a good mystery. I'd recommend this movie if you like animations and detective stories.
In this movie, that most people have not seen, we are shown the great sophistication and creativity of the Disney studios. First of all, we are taken to a wonderful subculture, the world of rodents in the city of London. A young female mouse loses her father, a toy maker, and is left alone. She goes to the Sherlock Holmes of mice to get help. In the process, she is introduced to the dark underbelly of this culture, populated with the worst of the worst, including a Moriarty figure, Ratigan. As is the case with most Disney animated villains, his hiring practices leave something to be desired as he surrounds himself with useless ding dongs. This has an intricate plot and is quite captivating. A real plus is Ratigan, who is voiced by the inimitable Vincent Price.
As I grew up during the Disney Renaissance era of the 90's when they were at the top of their game, Disney movies were a large part of my childhood and there are not very many of them that I have not seen. This was one of the few exceptions. The Great Mouse Detective is generally considered one of their lesser known films and I believe it is rightly put in that place. The 80's were the start of Disney giving their films extremely high budgets far greater than anything they had previously, yet the quality of animation in the little flick looked like some of the cheapest and undetailed work they have ever produced. One scene towards the end in the clock tower with its 3-D effect did look innovative and skill fully made but it didn't match up with the caliber of the rest of the movie. The effort was not evident and looked like it was done halfheartedly.Like many Disney films this follows a familiar story of Sherlock Holmes but instead stars his mouse counterpart the private eye Basil of Baker Street. It lacked the things that most Disney films excel at. There were no memorable songs, or a unforgettable devious villain, and most of the characters were unlikable in my opinion. Some exceptions to that were the peg legged bat Fidget and Toby the dog (who had a strange resemblance to Scooby-Doo). Even our main hero Basil was conceited, haughty, rude, obnoxious, and didn't even come off as intelligent (which is very unlike Sherlock Holmes). The story got much better towards the end as more things started happening and it made me really want to like the movie. But for me this was a dud and a Disney film that can be forgotten.
The Great Mouse Detective (1986) is one of the greatest Disney movies of all time and definitely their most underrated film in my opinion. The movie features the wonderful voice talents of Vincent Price as a great Disney villain, Professor Rattigan, basically the Moriarty character opposing the movie's "Sherlock" hero character, the titular The Great Mouse Detective, Basil of Baker Street (living under the floor of Sherlock Holmes).I don't want to give away the plot but the reason I love this movie so much is that there is a lot of great comedy in it, the hero and villain are both fantastic (and both have very entertaining cohorts), and the story is great.I love that this film is a little bit "darker" than most Disney films. Again, I don't want to give anything away, but the stakes in this movie are much higher and more "real" than most Disney films.The songs are even great and I still find myself humming a couple of them. The Rattigan song is amazing, and Vincent Price himself sings a wonderful "goodbye" song that plays on a record while he has Basil trapped.A truly great Disney movie that deserves much more praise!