My Review of "The Rescuers"

The Rescuers is an animated movie that came out back in 1977. It's real strange but I had never heard of this title before until some friends had told me about it. They had just heard that I had recently subscribed to Disney Plus and they said that I had to check this cartoon out. I was a little hesitant because it was such an old cartoon but the selection is so overwhelming that I have to start off somewhere.

This movie starts off pretty mysteriously. There's someone that places a message for help in a bottle and it travels across the a large body of water. From the beginning you don't really have a sense where the bottle is from and where it's floating off to.

The next thing you know they cut to a scene in New York. We see the United Nations building and inside the UN building there's a small hole in the wall. There's where a number of international mice congregate to rescue people in need. It's a pretty charming concept and I'm sure families would have fun with this idea.

They found the message in the bottle and they're bringing it up to the council to decide what to do. The Hungarian ambassador Bianca decides that she wants to take the case on. As it's a movie in the 1970's naturally they tell Bianca that the case is too dangerous for a woman. She decides to take Bernard, the janitor, to help her with the case. It's a sweet gesture even though the concept is quite outdated.

From the clues in the letter Bianca and Bernard go to the orphanage of the girl that had written the letter. We soon find out that she's been missing for quite some time and no one is out to look for her. They meet a cat that gives them important clues into where they should go to find the girl. It's kind of fun how they use these new characters to help guide them on their mysterious expedition.

The two get into a number of wacky situations trying to find the girl looking for help. As they get into these wild scenarios we learn that Bianca is an elegant mouse that is pretty carefree. In contrast to Bianca, Bernard is a worry wart and extremely superstitious. I was hoping they would kind of use his superstition for later in the movie but it never really comes into play later on in the movie.

The motive of the whole kidnapping of the orphan girl is quite odd and silly. Today with all of the crazy stories we hear from the news it's kind of a relief that the villain of this movie isn't as bad as our minds can take us. Even still this villain controls two alligators to help her keep things in order. She also throws the little girl into dangerous dark caves. I guess you can say she's still pretty terrible.

Another sign of the times was the blatant use of alcohol in this movie. They pretty much glorify the use of it. It's even used to save the day. I guess the same can be said about drug use in some of the movies today but this is a family movie so I didn't really expect to see that kind of behavior.

The animation is absolutely spectacular. It is a very fluid movie with tons of details. Some of the scenes had me in awe because I knew that they had to draw 24 images every second for when the waves of water were crashing at our heroes. There are a number of action scenes that were just mind boggling to comprehend. This was a time before computers and very little room for mistakes. I have to tip my hat to the animators for this movie.

I also forgot how cartoons were made back in the day. There's no real sense of consistency for size accuracy in this movie. You have owls and other animals as big as the mice but then you have the mice so small compared to the humans. It's a cartoon so I had to shut my mind off in a lot of the scenes. I don't think it was a huge priority especially when they were animating so many of these scenes by hand like I mentioned before.

Overall, I thought this movie was a visual feat. I enjoyed the main story and thought that the concept was really well thought out. It's a charming movie that I was able to sit through without totally nodding off. That's the thing not totally nodding off. There are a few areas of this movie that were a tad long and this could be my attention span ruined by technology of today. I have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. It's good enough to watch but I would say only watch it once. I can see how people would have nostalgia for this film though.