Worth seeing just for its inspired, whimsical, instantly-classic Al Hirschfeld-style Jazz Age-in-Manhattan episode accompanied by George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," Disney's update, originally made for the giant IMAX format, is a mixed bag of delightful and dull animated vignettes set to music. Besides "Rhapsody," the good bits include a beautifully rendered, silent film-style, damsel-in-distress episode inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" and set to Shostakovich, and two traditionally 'toony sequences in which: 1) Donald Duck clumsily assists Noah in loading the Ark (set to "Pomp and Circumstance"), and 2) a flamingo plays with a yo-yo (set to Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals"). Fantasia 2000 also includes the original, 1940 Fantasia's pièce de résistance, Mickey Mouse in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." Recommended. (R. Blackwelder)
Fantasia 2000
Walt Disney, 88 min., G, VHS: $26.99, DVD: $29.99, Nov. 14 Vol. 15, Issue 6
Fantasia 2000
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