The Great Mouse Detective

Reviewer: Alyice Edrich

The Cartoon

The Great Mouse Detective

The Plot

A young girl’s father is kidnapped but with the help of London’s greatest mouse detective she sets off to save him.

Starring

Susanne Pollatschek, Alan Young, Candy Candido, Val Bettin, Diana Chesney, Barrie Ingham, and Vincent Price, more.

The Review

It’s hard to believe that I never saw The Great Mouse Detective until this week. It is truly jam-packed with action, adventure, humor, and yes, singing and dancing. But what I was really thrilled to discover was the voice of Vincent Price—the ultimate bad guy. I tell you, even as a cartoon character, his voice melts the heart.

The Great Mouse Detective is one of Disney’s riskier films—from a classic film standpoint—in that this film holds what would be considered questionable content for young minds. Take, for instance, the bar fight scene where a female mouse not only begins to strip but sings about her willingness to take it all off. Aside from the strip act (which is technically off camera), there’s a huge bar fight with loads of drunkenness, and some very scary scenes.

That being said, there truly isn’t much difference between that “questionable content” and the content children’s shows now carry—just look at the jokes made in Shrek! So it’ll be easy to overlook that little flaw.

The film, itself, is entertaining. But like many before me, I have to say that I’m drawn to the bad buy. Though little ones may find him scary at times, I truly believe that Disney made him fun to watch—and listen to. I also enjoyed how closely the mouse detective resembled the real Sherlock Holmes.

The Great Mouse Detective is loosely based on Eve Titus’s book, Basil of Baker Street—a storyline that encompasses all that is Sherlock Holmes.

The story begins with a little girl spending time with her toymaker father. There’s some noise, a little commotion, then a creature bursts through the doors and whisks her father away. When the room is quiet, the little girl comes out of hiding and immediately begins to search for Basil—the famous mouse detective.

Upon meeting Basil she discovers that her father was taken away by the detective’s nemesis, Professor Ratigan. That, in and of itself, gives Basil all the reason he needs to take the case.

Later, they discover that Ratigan kidnapped her father in an attempt to build a soldier of robots to take over the mouse kingdom and dethrone the queen.

Through a series of events, Basil helps the young girl find he father, but you’ll have to watch the film to see if Ratigan overthrows the queen.

As for the bonus features, I have to say that if you’re only upgrading because of the bonus features, don’t. I am really disappointed in Disney for skimping in this area. With the film being over twenty years old, there is no excuse for leaving out featurettes about the cast, or original stills, or interviews, or even bloopers and outtakes. If, however, you have a VHS version, this version has been digitally re-mastered which means no graininess!