Reviewing Every Theatrical Live-Action Disney Film Ever Made…Or At Least Attempting To
(If this is your first time on this blog, I ask you to read my About page first! Thanks!)
Another day, another True-Life Adventure wannabe! Will these ever end? Will this one at least be tolerable? Guess we’ll just havta wait and see. Let’s take a look at Nikki: Wild Dog of the North.
And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!
(If this is your first time on this blog, I ask you to read my About page first! Thanks!)
Disney’s The Shaggy Dog franchise is an interesting one. Starting with 1959’s The Shaggy Dog and followed by 1976’s The Shaggy D.A., we then received two television films, 1987’s The Return of the Shaggy Dog and 1994’s The Shaggy Dog. Finally, we received the third theatrical film which served as a reboot of the franchise, 2006’s The Shaggy Dog.
Directed by Brian Robbins, the film has a reputation for being incredibly bad, but is it though? Let’s take a look at 2006’s The Shaggy Dog!
And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!
(If this is your first time on this blog, I ask you to read my About page first! Thanks!)
Another Disney film about a cougar?? Another wannabe True-Life Adventure?? Sigh…let’s just get this over with! Read on for my review of the Jerome Courtland-directed Run, Cougar, Run!
And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!
(If this is your first time on this blog, I ask you to read my About page first! Thanks!)
Seemingly out of nowhere, a Disney Christmas film dropped on Disney+ last November. Is it a holiday classic to be watched for generations to come? Or was there a reason it appeared out of nowhere? Let’s take a look at Dashing Through the Snow!
And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!
(If this is your first time on this blog, I ask you to read my About page first! Thanks!)
In 2011, the owner of Ohio’s Muskingum County Animal Farm, Terry Thompson, committed suicide, but not before letting loose 50 of his 56 exotic animals he owned into the wild. These animals ranged from lions to tigers to monkeys. What happened next was a nail-biting situation wherein law enforcement had to go hunt these wild animals to protect the public from harm. Citizens were warned to stay indoors and strange occurrences took place such as a woman watching in horror as a wild cat chased her pet horse and signs on the highway informing drivers to be cautioned for exotic animals!
In the end, law enforcement managed to kill most of the escaped animals (a few were eaten by the other animals) and the panic was over. Ever since then, I’ve always wanted someone to make a movie about this incident! It would be incredibly suspenseful, thrilling, and even delve into the world of horror somewhat. Alas to date, nobody has made a film about this incident, so I must satisfy my curiosity with other fictional films about wild animals on the loose.
This brings me to today’s Disney film about an escaped circus tiger, A Tiger Walks, directed by Norman Tokar. Read on for my review of the film.
And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!
(If this is your first time on this blog, I ask you to read my About page first! Thanks!)
Disney tried making a feature film based on my favorite Disney ride with Eddie Murphy in 2003. Long story short, it wasn’t all that great. Since then, Disney has tried to make another Haunted Mansion film, even having Guillermo del Toro working on it at one point. We’ve finally gotten that newer Haunted Mansion film, directed by Justin Simien though rather than Guillermo del Toro.
Does it do justice to the amazing Disney ride? Or is it at least better than the Eddie Murphy version? Read on to find out!
And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!
(If this is your first time on this blog, I ask you to read my About page first! Thanks!)
There are a number of films with the word, “Greatest”, in the title. Does this necessarily mean that the film itself is great? No, no it doesn’t. But surely there are exceptions, right? Let’s find out! Read on for my review of the Robert Scheerer-directed Disney film, The World’s Greatest Athlete!
And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!
(If this is your first time on this blog, I ask you to read my About page first! Thanks!)
Today is a milestone for me on this blog: it’s my 200th review! Over 10 years of the blog and I’ve finally arrived at my 200th theatrically-released live-action Disney film…and there’s still more to go, lol! To celebrate this anniversary, I’m going to do something that I’ve never done before on this blog: a collab! My friend and fellow blogger, film critic, and WWTBAM-Animation Edition contestant, Sean Nasuti, came up with the idea and will be joining me in reviewing today’s film. I’ll allow him to introduce himself. His words will be italicized and in green for the duration of this review.
Thanks, man! Greetings, folks, my name is Sean Nasuti, I’m a freelance film critic originally from Rhode Island. Since May of 2012, I’ve been publishing reviews, editorials, Top 10 lists, and other similar content from my own personal site, Rhode Island Movie Corner. While I cover anything film-related on that site, anyone who knows me knows that I’m a huge Disney fan. I’ve also been a consistent contestant on Mark’s annual series of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire – Animation Edition competitions, where I’ve even been a two-time champ. But today, Mark and I are teaming up here on his My Live-Action Disney Project site for his first-ever collab review. And dang, man, 200th review? Congrats on that significant milestone!!
Thanks for joining me, Sean. Why not tell my lovely readers (both of them) what film we’re tackling for the 200th review…assuming they haven’t read the title yet?
Well, you’ve already covered the bulk of Disney’s most famous live-action films on this site, so it’s clear that there wasn’t much left that I was super familiar with. Looking through your index, however, I did notice that there were a pair of films that, surprisingly, you haven’t covered yet. And this makes me excited because, while we’re only covering the first of these films today, this is a duology that I’m a big fan of. In fact, I’d even say these are some of my favorite films of all-time, period. Yes, folks, believe it or not, Mark has never covered… the National Treasure films.
Yes, I’m actually very surprised that nobody has requested me to review either of the two films yet!
I’m not kidding when I say that these National Treasure films have always been personal favorites of mine. I’ve rewatched them plenty of times over the years and still remember going to see them in theaters. In the case of the original, it was the second-ever film that I saw at what was, at the time, a newly opened Showcase Cinema De Lux theater that’s about a half-hour from my New England home. It truly became a regular watch for my family back in the day, and since this was right around the time that the original Indiana Jones trilogy saw its official debut on DVD, I think it’s safe to say that globe-trotting adventure films like these were really up my alley back in the day. And even after I got into film criticism and became far more aware of the generally mixed reception that both these films got from critics, I’ve never gotten bored of these films whenever I watched them.
While ultimately a 2004 release, National Treasure is a project that had been in the works since 1999 under the direction of Jon Turteltaub who, at the time, had become a regular mainstay at Disney having directed a wide variety of films such as the 1993 cult-classic bobsled comedy, Cool Runnings, and 1996’s John Travolta vehicle, Phenomenon. The premise had been developed two years prior by the duo of Oren Aviv and Charles Segars with screenwriter Jim Kouf writing the initial screenplay; over the next few years, several other writers reworked the script, including director Turteltaub himself, though the final film only credits Aviv, Segars, Kouf, and the husband and wife duo of Cormac and Marianne Wibberley, with the Wibberleys eventually becoming the franchise’s key writers from this point onward.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at National Treasure!
And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!
(If this is your first time on this blog, I ask you to read my About page first! Thanks!)
You would think that a movie about a kid being gifted an honest-to-goodness lion from a circus would be about the adventures and challenges that the kid faces with said lion! But, nope! Somehow a kid owning a lion gets treated as an incidental subplot! And yet, the movie is actually a good one! Let’s take a look at Disney’s Napoleon and Samantha!
And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!
(If this is your first time on this blog, I ask you to read my About page first! Thanks!)
After receiving backlash due to the casting of an African-American woman as the mermaid princess, Ariel (who was depicted as white in the animated 1989 film), The Little Mermaid was released to theaters in May 2023 to mixed reviews. Interestingly enough, it was director Rob Marshall’s fourth theatrical film for Disney after having directed Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (also featuring a mermaid), Into the Woods, and Mary Poppins Returns.
Did I think this was the best film under the sea? Read on to find out!
And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!
My Live Action Disney Project 