Walt Disney, part XLVI: Bad and good luck tales

DUCKTALES THE MOVIE: TREASURE OF THE LOST LAMP

1990

Directed by Bob Hathcock

Written by Alan Burnett

Spoilers: moderate

Walt Disney, part XLV: Slimy, yet satisfying

THE LION KING

1994

Directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff

Written by many

Spoilers: high

Live girls are easy

LISA FRANKENSTEIN

2024

Directed by Zelda Williams

Written by Diablo Cody

Spoilers: moderate

Walt Disney, part XLIV: I'm bored from leering my horrible glances, and my feet hurt from dancing those skeleton dances

THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS

1993

Directed by Henry Selick

Written by Caroline Thompson, Michael McDowell, and Danny Elfman (based on the poem by Tim Burton)

Spoilers: moderately highish, I guess

Walt Disney, part XLIII: You ain't never had a friend like me

ALADDIN

1992

Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker

Written by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Ron Clements, John Musker, and what appears to be the entire staff of Walt Disney Feature Animation

Spoilers: moderate

Disney's Challengers, part XI: Après moi, le déluge

ROCK-A-DOODLE

1992

Directed by Don Bluth

Written by David N. Weiss and numerous others (based on the play Chantecler by Edmond Rostand)

Spoilers: moderate

Disney's Challengers, part X: A thriving animation studio, somewhere in the world

AN AMERICAN TAIL: FIEVEL GOES WEST

1991

Directed by Simon Wells and Phil Nibbelink

Written by David Kirchner, Charles Swenson, and Flint Dille

Spoilers: moderate

Reviews from gulag: The red [door/car/nosed reindeer]

As we continue our clean-up of 2023 with a series of reviews for movies that may or may not have deserved their own entries, we arrive upon Insidious: The Red Door, annoyingly both the fourth and the second sequel to James Wan's 2011 horror superhit, Insidious, picking up the Lambert Saga ten years after Wan finished it in Insidious: Chapter 2 for no obvious reason besides giving perennial supporting-actor champion Patrick Wilson his first crack at directing; Ferrari, Michael Mann's biopic of Enzo Ferrari that, hypothetically, appeals to Mann's historic strengths as a filmmaker or should at least offer some good racing scenes; and Silent Night, John Woo's pun-titled, Christmas-themed experimental action film.  As the title up top indicates, there is indeed something meaningfully red in all three of these movies, but the actual secret theme of these graybles is that they all involve a director I respect a great deal, even if it's for reasons besides directing, nevertheless proving a disappointment.

INSIDIOUS: THE RED DOOR

I've suggested in the past that the Insidious franchise, prior to Insidious: The Red Door, is not good, and, having recently reacquainted myself with them (or become acquainted with some of them in the first place), I'm happy to recant that, albeit with faint praise; it's a horror franchise with the agreeable distinction of improving steadily throughout all of its first three entries, going from a low 7/10 for the first Insidious all the way to a medium-high 7/10 for 2015's Insidious: Chapter 3.  This was unlikely to continue apace and it did stumble, rather hard, with its fourth entry, 2018's Insidious: The Last Key, which at least had a few strong novelties to offset the feeling that the franchise had clearly exhausted most of its best moves already.  (The first three all had the benefit of being directed by one or the other of its creators, James Wan or Leigh Whannell, which makes more of a difference than you might be ready to guess, given how formulaic the scares and stories are.  Meanwhile, The Last Key was at least written by Whannell, which didn't save it, but it felt of a piece with its three predecessors.)  Other than The Last Key not being good, however, the worst thing about those first four films is that Chapter 3 took the unusual step of being a prequel focused upon Lin Shaye's paranormal investigator and spirit medium, Elise Rainier.  Obviously, insofar as Elise was almost objectively the single best element of the franchise, its focus on her was not the bad part; that's the "prequel" part, where Whannell blinked and took his franchise back in time to give Elise a new story, despite having already ended Chapter 2 with an inordinately strong sequel hook, for while that film concluded the "central" story of the Lambert family on a satisfying and happy note, it also promised Further adventures (ha, ha) with Elise and her sidekicks, irrespective of the fact that Elise had been dead for an entire movie by this point.  I mean, it's a franchise entirely about ghosts and the metaphysical dark mirror of the real world where ghosts hang out after they die; this was not some insuperable challenge.  The worst thing about the worst thing, meanwhile, is simply that, flying in the face of all logic, Whannell's prequel was still named "chapter 3."  This had to be awfully irritating when development began on Insidious: The Red Door, which finally does offer a chronologically-third Insidious movie, as well as another (and presumably the final) chapter in the story of Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) and Dalton Lambert (Ty Simpkins), father and son astral projectors whose unique talents had tended to get them into trouble.

The annihilator

THE MARVELS

2023

Directed by Nia DaCosta

Written by Megan McDonnell, Elissa Karasik, and Nia DaCosta

Spoilers: moderate

Disney's Challengers, part VIII: Dog damn

ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN

1989

Directed by Don Bluth (co-directed by Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy)

Written by David N. Weiss and zillion other people

Spoilers: moderate

Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should

WE'RE BACK! A DINOSAUR'S STORY

1993

Directed by Phil Nibbelink, Ralph Zondag, Dick Zondag, and Simon Wells

Written by John Patrick Shanley, Flint Dille, and Sherri Stoner (based on the picture book by Hudson Talbott)

Spoilers: moderate

Disney's Challengers, Part XII: Humans will always lend a hand with the destruction of this worthless jungle land

FERNGULLY: THE LAST RAINFOREST

1992

Directed by Bill Kroyer

Written by Jim Cox (based on the novella by Diana Young)

Spoilers: moderate