The Black Cauldron (July 24, 1985)

I was originally looking forward to finally watching this film because, as I stated in my Robin Hood review, I particularly enjoy medieval themed films and I originally believed this film would be based on Arthurian legend like one of my most beloved Disney films, The Sword in the Stone. I had heard its infamous reputation about it being the “film that almost killed Disney Animation” but I thought, surely it cannot be that bad. Oh, how wrong I was! The film is a mess. The animation itself is fair but the characters do not always fit in with the backgrounds. And the world itself is fairly barren and sparsely populated. You do not see much of it besides a brief journey into the forest and the Horned King’s castle. Next, the plot is very jumbled. I understand that the point is friendship is worth more than anything (which is very cliqued but passable). But the sword that is featured in the posters is the coolest part about the movie and it is barely featured except as a bartering device for the titular Black Cauldron. The movie is loosely based on the first two books in The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, a series of five novels that are, in turn, based on Welsh mythology. This means that the plot suffers as the source material is lengthy and complex and does not lend itself well to one children’s movie. The most egregious part, however, are the characters. They are bland, uninteresting, and downright unlikable. Taran is the ‘hero’ of the story who does not do anything heroic except for trade the sword for Gurgi. Gurgi is this dog-like creature who is a fraidy cat and runs away from danger. He is not worth saving even when he sacrifices himself to stop the black cauldron from resurrecting an undead army. Next up is Princess Eilonwy who serves little more as a kind somewhat oblivious female member of the team who does not contribute much besides helping Taran break out from the dungeon. Finally, there is Fflewddur Fflam, a bard who has a magical sentient harp (which is never explained) and who only serves as comic relief. Additionally, the villain’s motives are unclear beyond raise an army in order to take over the world. There is no backstory to him besides, he is evil for evil’s sake. I do not mind the dark tone of the movie. But it is dark for dark’s sake with no interesting narrative to prop it up. One bright side to this movie is that, because it was a financial disaster for Disney, it led to its animation department being restructured. This allowed for the Disney renaissance films to be produced a few years later, starting with The Little Mermaid in 1989. This does not detract from the poor quality of this film which was marred in a tumultuous development. The Black Cauldron is one of my least favorite Disney Animation films despite its lofty ambitions and its interesting source material.

Final Rating: 2.5/10