"The Black Cauldron" - Disney animated film review

The Disney animated movie that I watched for the first time last week was "The Black Cauldron".

This was another case where I knew nothing about the movie.  I knew there was some kind of magical element to it, and I thought there were a group of three witches involved somehow, but that's it.

The story started with a mean king who was outright evil.  I don't remember them saying that he was magical, just that he was cruel, but then they said he was tossed into a black cauldron to contain his evil and that if anyone ever unearthed him, they could release his evilness back into the world.  OK, so magical, I guess.  It made me think of "Thor: Dark World", where the Dark Elves were looking to release their dark master to wreak havoc on the Nine Realms.

Awww, cute little kitty.  I'm gonna like this movie.  But then kitty disappears for the rest of the movie, so boo.

Piggie has magical powers.  Why?  I don't know.  He kind of looked like Wilbur from "Charlotte's Web".

And the Horned King is looking for the black cauldron so that he can harness the dark powers.  Who is the Horned King?  I dunno.  Is he the actual king of whatever kingdom this is?  Dunno.  Cause the last king was a pretty bad dude, so was he followed by another bad king, because if he was, this kingdom keeps getting the short end of the stick in the king department.  Anyway, the Horned King somehow knows that Piggie has powers that will reveal where the black cauldron is, so he sends his dragon minions to retrieve Piggie.

Piggie's caretaker has an assistant who looks and dresses a bit like Peter Pan, and he really annoyed me pretty much throughout the movie.  Look at me, I'm awesome, I'm gonna be the hero, I'm too good to be an assistant pig tender.  Yeah, and I fail at every turn, including losing Piggie, whom he was supposed to be taking to safety.  Dude, you had one job.

And then I guess we're at the Horned King's castle, and for some reason, he has some weird version of Esmeralda from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" there as well as one of the gargoyles, who appears to be the Horned King's office manager.

And then not-Peter Pan encounters a girl who looks remarkably like Aurora from "Sleeping Beauty", and she even has some little ball of light that she follows around that looks like the ball of light that Aurora followed up to the attic to the deadly spinning wheel.  Hasn't she learned that the ball leads her to trouble yet?

And then they meet a bard / minstrel who reminded me of the Keebler elves.  And not-Peter Pan finds and absconds with a sword, which turns out to be magical and is perfectly capable of holding its own in a fight without anyone actually wielding it, thank you very much.  Is this where Excalibur went into hiding?  That was my first thought, given that the movie I saw last week was "The Sword in the Stone".  The magic sword comes with a sheath that must also be magical because not-Peter Pan leaves the dwelling with not-Aurora and clearly nothing else, but then later, he somehow has the sheath.  Did the sheath find him or just materialize in his vicinity?

Not-Peter Pan and not-Aurora are wandering around, I don't remember why, and I kept thinking, where's Piggy and where's her light?  And then some weirdo creature shows up that they never explained, and I have no idea what it was, and I generally found it annoying too, with a speech pattern that was a mix of Stitch, Donald Duck and Jar Jar Binks.

And then they encounter some cave underwater where there are fairy babies.  OK.  And some version of Santa and his elves live there too.  OK.  And there's some discussion where they figure out where the black cauldron is, and they're going to go there because if they destroy it, the Horned King won't be able to use it!  How are they going to destroy it?  Dunno.

So how do they get to where the black cauldron is?  They spread pixie dust on them so they can fly / float.  No, really, I'm not kidding.  OK.  And when they get to where they need to be, they encounter 3 witches.  Ah ha!  See, I was right, there are 3 witches in this.  The 3 witches turn people and things into frogs so that they can eat them.  And one immediately falls in love with Keebler elf minstrel, acting like the lovesick female characters in other Disney animated films that I've already complained about. Just.stop.

Turns out the witches are somehow the gatekeepers of the black cauldron and talk not-Peter Pan into trading his magic sword for the cauldron.  We all know this is a bad idea, right?

Stuff happens, cauldron gets unearthed, Horned King shows up and tries to unleash the power of the cauldron but APPARENTLY, a voluntary life sacrifice will put an end to it.  Before not-Peter Pan can be the sacrifice, weirdo creature says he will do it and dives into the cauldron like Buffy Summers diving into the hellmouth to save the world.  More things ensue, and the Horned King ends up being tractor-beamed into the cauldron, and everything goes kablooey, leaving only the empty cauldron.

The witches come back and want the cauldron, so Keebler elf minstrel bargains with them, and not-Peter Pan wants to trade it back for weirdo creature.  And the merry band of travelers head off together to ... I don't know where.  The end.  Yeah, I wasn't really sure what all happened.

I will give Disney a lot of credit for attempting a film that's so different from everything else they've done.  It's definitely much darker and scarier than everything else they've put out, and I loved the visuals of the Horned King's castle and when magical stuff happened.  But I thought the story was a bit convoluted and not very well set out.  The main character is Piggie.  Umm, no.  The main character is not-Peter Pan.  Ummm, no, not really.  Oh, the main characters are the trio who go on their Lord-of-the-Ring-ish quest.  Ummm, no.  The main character is the Horned King.  Nope.  The main character is the evil king in the black cauldron?  Nope.  I give up.

I also had a problem with the constant switching of scenes back and forth, from the scary stuff involving the Horned King and his various minions, and then to the happy, pastoral, Disneyesque scenes with not-Peter Pan, not-Aurora and Keebler elf minstrel.  The stories weren't melded together  very well and instead seemed like two different movies were haphazardly edited together.

I didn't care that much about not-Peter Pan or his mentor or not-Aurora or Keebler elf minstrel or Piggie or really anyone else they associated with.  Except the kitty.  I would like to know the story of the Horned King and the evil king, so I'd watch that if they had the kitty in there as well.