#25 The Black Cauldron

Title: The Black Cauldron

Release Date: July 24th, 1985

Voice Cast: Grant Bardsley, Susan Sheridan, Nigel Hawthorne, John Byner

Recap: An assistant pigkeeper, Taran, learns that his pig has supernatural powers. An evil overlord, the Horned King, seizes the pig in order to find a magical, powerful cauldron. Taran, along with Princess Eilonwy, Fflewddur Fflam, and a primate-esque creature named Gorgi, must stop the Horned King from harnessing the power of the black cauldron and save his beloved pig.

Review: I'm toying with the idea of saying the negative things about this film first. I've never really thought about it before, but I suppose when reviewing films I like to state the pros first. For some reason, I think I'm going to hand you the cons first so you know how I truly feel about The Black Cauldron.

Where to begin? The Black Cauldron is a mess. There's no suspense, but the creators sure try for some. Ironically, that's their downfall. Too many moments of explosive score result in absolutely nothing in suspense. But it's hardly the score's fault. Everything is either predictable, cliché, or a predictable cliché. Characters are disturbingly stereotypical for a fantasy film.

I imagine that The Black Cauldron was better as a book, and even better when placed in a series. Surprisingly to me, Lloyd Alexander, the author of the series, enjoyed the film. Honestly, all the film did for me was inspire me to read a good fantasy book. Just because I know I can most likely be more pleased with a book than an adaptation.

The two pros? First of all, it continues with the modern style of animation I mentioned in the Fox and the Hound review. Other pro: innovative sound effects, none like you've ever seen before from Disney. I hope the sound engineers for this film got a good cut of the revenue. But even magificent sound an vision couldn't make me watch The Black Cauldron again.

Bare Necessities