Change Your Image
axldance
Reviews
The Princess and the Goblin (1991)
Loved It as a Kid, Enjoyed it 30 Years On
As a non-Disney movie made in 1991 with 1/3 the budget of Alladin, it is a masterpiece. If you want to hate this movie you will find reasons to do so, but it is a really fun, sweet, and surprisingly conceptual for a child's film. I am uncertain whether today's 5 year-olds would enjoy such a dated presentation but it's worth a shot.
The animation is dated now and it was kind of dated back then. It came out in 1992 but I would believe anyone who said it came out in 1982. It's not bad animation, just not on par with Alladin but better than Jungle Book. I actually like the kind of watercolor backgrounds, it adds a dream-like quality.
The story is sweet, it is a kid's movie, and there are couple funny parts. The voice acting is for the most part quite good.
It was one of my favorite movies as a kid probably between 4 and 10 years old. The concepts and story are quirky. The characters are lovable to a fault, even some of the goblins.
Tom Horn (1980)
Flawed But Wonderful If You Like Westerns
I'll put it simply: if you don't like Westerns this movie is not for you. Plenty of Steve McQueen squaring off with cattle rustlers. Deeply confused how anyone could say not enough action.
Many people describe it as boring, hard to follow, and lacking action. Anyone who can't follow the plot is overthinking things. Mysterious gunslinger rides into town and is recruited to protect the weak from the strong. Seriously how hard is that to follow? Timeless narrative.
Further if you pay attention it is blaringly obvious that Tom Horn is deeply troubled by his past and resentful that the frontier he was told he was making safer by killing native Americans, was in fact every bit as vicious if not more so than even the most biased representations of the time. He also was deeply disillusioned by the government. That's established very early on. Through that lense when a man who is a masterful killer and ranch hand with a bent but not entirely broken moral compass is given a new job to be the unambiguously "good guy" while also getting to ply his skills as a killer it seems like he has finally found his place in the world and then the essential question the film poses is "is the world too violent for Tom Horn to thrive or is Tom Horn too violent for the world to let him thrive?"
Admittedly the movie does not hold your hand and there are many scenes that are more like vignettes that provide impressionistic snapshots of story development interspersed at unexpected intervals. At the same time this approach drives home the fact that we don't really know that much about Tom Horn's last days. You may find yourself wondering if certain scenes are memories or day dreams. On the other hand do you really want another slow plodding 3 hour Western where every spot on the map is filled in for you?
Steve Mcqueen is brilliant in the role. He is the character and the rest of the actors are good if not great. If I could make one change to the movie it would be to celebrate the landscape more. Lots of pretty country that often remains out of view.