Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas (2004)

Thanks for the memories!

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

I normally dislike CG animation. Its graphical perfection makes it too artificial for me. "Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas," however, is perfectly suited for CG animation. There is a colorful vibrancy and liveliness to it that makes it much more festive. Consider the sad alternative: second rate hand-drawn animation rivaling that of Saturday morning cartoons. That being said, the animation here is top-notch. Disney is no-doubt attempting to flex its CGI muscle as it transitions away from hand-drawn animation (also, see the theme park commercials, Mickey's Philharmagic, etc.). Also, it should be noted that comparing the quality of this animation with that of a big budget Pixar movie is extremely ignorant. CG animation has its own costs and it would be poor budgeting to spend that much on a video feature. Regardless, it does not suffer from the lack of that detailed a polish.The stories themselves are entertaining, and there is a surprising amount of wit and imaginative storytelling written into the script. My only complaint is that it would be nice for Disney to create a full feature Mickey Mouse film. Short stories work fine, but it ends and starts again too soon to create any audience involvement.

Computer graphics are used to shorten production times. In an ideal world they don't shorten artistic content but this is not an ideal world. The Christmas 2004 Mickey mouse "film" is not ideal either. It's simply trying to rerun old glory and just doesn't do it for me. Sure there's all the competency one would expect from Disney. It's cute, and the CGI animation is very good but it just doesn't say or show anything new. I don't expect anything amazing from what is in effect a film annual, you understand, just a little bit of freshness would make it good for me.... but it ain't there. I can see Walt sleeping in the front row on this one. If you just want a Mickey Mouse film, choose something else - this isn't a good example.

I saw a clip of this and knew from the start that this was different from the same old Mickey Christmas movies that they come out with every year knowing it will sell. This one is an exception, the animation is flawless (literally), the colors are magnificent, and the stories are solid. The special features are a for little kids, but the movie is for all ages. You would think this is a cliché, wimpy Mickey Mouse movie (quite the contrary);however, if you're looking for a landslide from boring Disney movies I would recommend this this. This is also has a hint of sarcasm in this movie which is extremely rare for a animated Disney movie. Comedy is one of the many reasons you should see this movie.

Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas came out on DVD last week and I was a skeptic. Sure, Pixar and Disney have had (mostly) homeruns with their computer animated films. Sure, their are currently two computer animated films dominating the US domestic box-office,.....a death knell for traditional animation unfortunately. Still, I've enjoyed most of these films. Why not a computer animated Mickey, Donald, & Goofy? Well, why not indeed. Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas, is a good holiday family film. It isn't too cloyingly sweet, it's probably got more in common with recent Mickey/Donald/Goofy films than with Mickey's Christmas Carol (my personal fave), but, it certainly tries and actually has good stories (it's an anthology of mostly, fluffy yule-tide tales). I liked the Pluto/ Reindeer storyline in particular. Anyway, how does a CGI Mickey look? Surprisingly good. A few years ago a company released another ,...ahem,...homage to a classic Christmas special about a certain reindeer with a red nose. It stunk and it was CGI. Not so with this movie. Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas uses computer animation well and it looks good, has a good storyline, and is overall successful and worthy to add to your collection of Disney DVD's. I certainly hope we don't just get CGI animation from Disney or other companies anymore, although, it really looks like we may,...*sigh* But, if the quality is like Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas it'll definitely soften the blow. So, warm up some Cocoa and pop this one into your DVD player over the holidays.