I've seen a couple of direct-to-DVD movies, one worthwhile if you like animated superhero stuff, and yet another laughable Disney franchise sequel.
Where to begin, really. The Invincible Iron Man or Cinderella III: A Twist in Time?
I have to pick the biggest train wreck, and guess which one that is?
To preface, one lazy afternoon a friend and I gave in and watched a Disney straight to video sequel. My younger brother is autistic, and he is an obsessive collector of various things. One of those things happens to be the Disney video library. The straight-to-video sequels of The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, and so on are so bad in so many ways, it is truly remarkable. Morbid curiosity turned into a bad habit, and I've been hooked to bad Disney sequels as if to black tar heroin: they can cause nothing but pain and suffering, but you can't stop once you get started.
Under some miraculous circumstance, I have seen the third entry in the Cinderella series, coming straight to DVD within the next couple of weeks. The short verdict is: it's cringe-inducing and horrible. If your morbid curiosity matches mine, the guy who sacrificed his time to it willingly, then read on.
Apparently Cinderella II: Dreams Come True was a failed TV series-turned "DVD movie", featuring "episodes" cobbled together as a sorry excuse for an anthology story about Cinderella's first days after getting married to Prince Prince (I call him that since he is still without a name). One of the mice gets turned into a human, Cinderella has trouble adjusting, and her wicked stepsister gets to find a love of her own.
[As a side note, this is similar to how Cruel Intentions 2 came into existence. It was to be the pilot for a series called Manchester Prep, itself a TV series stretching-out of the movie, which then had some gratuitous nudity and language added so it could be a "movie". I can only imagine how much better Cinderella 2: Cinderelly Gone Wild could have sold.]
Aw. I wish all this nonsense had ended there, but it didn't.
Not only did we need this third entry, it disregards the already shoddy continuity of the first craptastic "sequel".
We open on the 1-year anniversary of Cinderella and Prince Princestein's wedding, and boy howdy is the wicked stepfamily up to their old tricks again. Mysteriously, whichever stepsister found true love the last time Disney wanted to make a buck is without her man. Golly, it's like it never happened.
Cinderella and Prince vonPrince dance around in the forest, with Old Lady Bippitty Boppitty (Fairy Godmother) doing all sorts of magic as everyone sings and dances around the CGI. Somehow, Anastasia (the redheaded stepsister) finds them and sees that the reason Cinderella was able to get her hands on Mr. McPrince was thanks to that wand and Bippitty Boppitty Boo-ing.
So she steals the wand and Wicked delaStepmother uses it to turn back time so that Anastasia can marry O'Princey. Here begins the greatest overuse of a catchphrase ever, the result being you never want to hear "Bippitty Boppitty Boo" again after seeing this.
How is it that the Wicked Stepfamily are the only ones who retain their knowledge of the future, you ask? How does the frozen-in-stone Fairy Godmother no longer appear in The Past? Silly rabbit! Remember what movie we're talking about here!
So, Mr. Prince is BippittyBoppittyBooed into thinking he danced with the annoying redhead at the ball instead of Blondie McPerfectgirl, who he no longer recognizes. Apparently, touching her hand makes him sort of kind of remember who she is. The Very Special Disney Lesson: nothing stops true love, not even evil devil magic, just hold hands and everything will be all right.
Cinderella and the mice almost succeed stealing the wand from the Stepfolks, but alas Cinderella is captured by guards and banished (emphasis on the -ed, like in Shakespeare). She is sent to a ship that will take her Far Farther Away, but wait--the hench-mice sing a song explaining everything to El Prince Muy Macho! After calling for the guards, he rides off on his noble steed to save her, but the ship has just left port! Zounds!
Not to be so easily beaten, MC Princealot spies a lighthouse on a cliff that conveniently hangs over where the ship is headed! Will he make it in time? Will he be thrown off his horse directly in the path of the ship, and then, grab hold of a swinging rope, which then in turn allows him to snag the main sail with his knife and then plop down right in front of Cinderella so that he can ask:
Prince: [reeking with cheese] "Remember me?"
...and then embrace her lovingly?
Ahem.
Not to be outdone, the villains have teleported away from the guards that were sicced on them, and Evil Stepmommy has a plan! She makes Anastasia look exactly like Cinderella to trick Princerelli! You thought they couldn't use every cheap fairy tale princess cliche, but they did and more!
In the end, we get a standard "Villain Thinks Better of Their Choice to Betray the Heroine" resolution and everyone who should be is happy.
Do they undo all of the continuity-bending of the original film's timeline to restore the sanctity of the original classic?
Oh, dear reader, I hope you know the answer already.
The voice cast does an excellent job with bad dialogue on top of the scripting, and they certainly can't be blamed for a movie that they were probably contractually indentured to doing.
In all seriousness, as much as I enjoy the idea of continuing the adventures of beloved characters and fantasy worlds, this crap has to stop. I love Reba McEntire, but snagging her was not reason enough to make The Fox and the Hound 2 (review forthcoming). I'd rather see Disney spend time and resources into properly restoring and releasing their classic catalogue to DVD than this, but money is money.
The "25th Anniversary" edition of The Fox and the Hound is cropped square from the original widescreen master (and muddy/unrestored as I've seen a "restored classic"). The sound mix on Mary Poppins, Aladdin, and The Little Mermaid "Special Editions" is actually inferior to the original no-frills DVD releases of them all.
Hopefully as this last (I hope) wave of the Eisner profiteering era at Disney makes its way out the door, the John Lasseter (Mr. Pixar, and the new head of animation) era can rectify some of the glaring omissions we've seen from this company.
In the meantime, we can look forward to The Little Mermaid III, set chronologically before the first film, coming to DVD early in 2008. And yes, I'm serious, it's real. The ads are on the Mermaid DVD I shouldn't have bought.
Iron Man is quite good, but this has taken a lot out of me, so I'll write it up over the weekend.