Maybe he'll be more content with house life if they get him fixed.
One of the reasons why my passion for the Disney Animated Canon, reignited mid-adolescence, has continued to only grow and endure over the years and indeed one of the factors that has allowed it to thrive across generations is its ability to unite a versatile number of family appropriate animated features under a single banner with little sacrifice to their own identity.
While several films do have the distinction of being
adaptations of source material with various association of origins, the more
unique entries of the Canon carry certain distinguishers that make them more
unique than the standard kids movies of today cobbled together by standard kids
movie formulas.
“Zootopia” is a lighthearted crime movie, “The Lion King” is
a theatrical drama, “Lilo and Stitch” is a sci-fi family comedy, etc.
The deeper themes of the individual films notwithstanding,
one of the reasons so many of these direct to video sequels fail so miserably is
the age of mass market production in which they were produced; why expend so
much effort to put together one quality sequel to a unique product when you can
make several at once to be released less than a year apart across several different
would be franchises that can be simultaneously milked?
With that in mind, let’s take a brief look at Golden Age
Disney and their 1955 romance “Lady and the Tramp” and a more extended look at
the bastard offspring audacious enough to claim itself a part of its legacy.
Produced by Walt Disney himself and even assembled by members of his Nine Old Men, “Lady and the Tramp” wasn’t quite the critical darling of its age that its more modern reception might have you believe.
The simple cross class love story of a privileged cocker
spaniel and a street savvy stray mutt was initially mocked in the day for its
simplicity and lesser animation when compared to the studio’s previous works.
However the passage of time and, undoubtedly, future generations of children having
grown up watching the film have been rather kind to it.
Of the Animated Canon the movie is inarguably more on the
quaint side by today’s standards but nevertheless carries an endearing charm
with a mildly subversive edge to it that never lets it get unwatchably saccharin
the way typical adult romances can even get.
Short, sweet, simple and effective, “Lady and the Tramp” has
done well enough for itself as a worthwhile feature of animation and generally
holds up despite a few hiccups of societal sensibilities, such as awkward
racism.
Carrying a substantially less monumental legacy than the source materials of the previous sequels, one would think that “Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure” would have substantially less to fall. Under any other circumstance, that would be a good thing. Of course, the Disney of Michael Eisner can’t be relied upon to be that predictable.
After the Tramp puts his street running days behind him in
favor of a domesticated family life with his mate and pups, his lone son of the
litter grapples with the memo that life on the streets starving from meal to
meal and thinking on your feet to merely see the next day isn’t pleasant.
As such, Scamp has to learn the hard way that life on the
streets is harder than a warm and comfortable home surrounded by the ones you
love with food and care provided for you as needed.
I am supposed to root for this kid, right?
Needless to say, there’s something a little bit backward
about the obvious morals of “Scamp’s Adventure” but the stupidity of the set up
is more emblematic of the place that the project comes from as a whole.
That “Scamp’s Adventure” doesn’t live up to the legacy of “Lady
and the Tramp” is something of an observation that should probably be taken for
granted with regards to almost every Disney direct to video sequel unless
otherwise noted, especially for a film recognized by American film historians as
having one of the most iconic kisses of film history in a society with a
stigmatizing chip on its shoulder breeding negative perceptions toward animation.
As I’ve previously mentioned however, “Lady and the Tramp”
didn’t have the same level of immediate attachment among the audiences for
these sequels that the other’s have had, nor did it have the veneer of timeless
marketability that would be exploited for future sequels, such as “Cinderella.”
This may not quite be the worst sequel of the lot but it is
by far the epitome of everything that represents the mindset of what went into
it; desperate to a point that draws out confusion, detached from everything
that characterizes the movie it claims to be a continuation of, and crafted
from a formula clearly lifted from the last 2 films in its line (The Little
Mermaid 2, The Lion King 2) despite that formula not having quite worked to the
benefit of those sequels either.
Yet, in true micromanaged overly commercial fashion, the
film feels bizarrely restrained from a swing for the fences mentality that
would have made it at least so bad that it was memorable.
Similarly to the aforementioned Disney Renaissance direct to
video sequels, “Scamp’s Adventure” continues to poison kids perceptions of
parenting with Tramp and Scamp’s dysfunctional relationship and understanding
built upon the lie that he’s been a house dog his entire life. Unlike those
other films, themselves lesser sequels to acclaimed originals with legacies, what
aspects of sympathy and understanding were to be had are completely lost.
Simba strove to protect his daughter in the face of his own new
overwhelming responsibilities and traumatic childhood the only way he knew how.
Ariel denied her daughter a piece of her heritage to protect her from an ever-present
threat to her life.
Scamp rejects a life of luxury to chase a clearly more
dangerous and volatile lifestyle that his dad could quell by vividly scaring
him away from it. Yet Tramp’s somehow in the wrong for not exposing his son to
this truth before any need for him to know?
The film doesn’t quite have a firm grasp on what its own
endgame is. By act 3 the class difference stuff goes out the window in favor of
a routine race against time climax, i.e. break out of the Pound before euthanization,
closing things on the same blandly inconsistent note that they kicked off on.
Everything in between just feels like aimless space that
needs to be filled.
When Scamp gets loose, he falls in with a crowd of 1 note
personality Junkyard dogs, led by a Rottweiler voiced by Chazz Palminteri, who’s
thoroughly unpleasant but never quite does anything as devious as how he’s
portrayed. I’d express bizarre surprise and curiosity as to why Palminteri took
the check for this of all projects but here we are some decade and a half or so
later, and it’s far from the weirdest career choice he’s ever made. Not even
the weirdest kids movie.
Touched on yet never properly elaborated upon is his budding
relationship with one of the dogs, Angel, which clearly stands out as the token
attempt to tie the movie back to its predecessor despite having about as little
thought put into its execution or resolution as everything else.
The nicest credit that I can really give “Scamp’s Adventure”
is that it’s directed by “Simba’s Pride” alumn Darrell Rooney and to offer acknowledgement
where it’s due, he’s clearly come a long way since his botch job there.
The voice cast steps up to the plate to deliver generally
serviceable performances in a production that technically up to snuff with well
paced set pieces that just can’t elevate or outpace the soulless conception of
the movie that it’s bringing to life. In other words, a generic standard kids movie.
It’s a cynicism to be perpetuated by just about every one of
these movies going forward that the Fairy Freaking Godmother wouldn’t be able
to whisk away.
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