Welcome to my blog series about my passion to the movies and television. I hope you enjoy what I have to say when I express my opinions and you are free to have your own thoughts.
I hated The Great Mouse Detective from the moment I first saw it as a kid. I watched it on VHS completely astonished with what I've watched and had this suspicion that this was a phenomenal flop. I mean, no one could possibly like this movie right? What's there to like? Well, my suspicions were wrong. The movie was a moderate critical and commercial success, was often credited for laying the groundwork for the Disney Renaissance, and it currently has a cult following to this day.
I was initially dumbfounded at first, but doing some research on the film's production, I realized that Disney didn't have high hopes for the movie either. The movie had a somewhat troubled history and the creative team behind it were not given the full support from the studio at the time. It was produced around the same time as the notorious flop that was The Black Cauldron and the animation department was expected to shut down if this movie suffered the same fate. The then-new management at Disney were getting worried about the company's legacy and they didn't fully back the project at all. So the movie opened in the summer of 1986 and it did well enough to convince Disney to make more animated features.
So that means that the film's minor success came from people, either professional critics or ordinary moviegoers, who saw it as a genuinely good film without any hype or high expectations at all. I'm honestly impressed and sincerely happy with what they did, this movie proved Disney wrong. Hell, even nine years before I was born, it proved me wrong, and that's a genuine accomplishment that I can't take away.
But even though I can acknowledge the good it has done for Disney, I still don't think it's a good movie. I had so many fundamental issues with the story and characters that I just didn't like it as a kid and I still dislike it today for the same reasons. So without further ado, here's an in depth look at why I don't like this one.
My First And Biggest Problem With The Movie
The movie is set in Victorian London and it opens when the toymaker Hiram Flaversham gets kidnapped. His daughter, Olivia, leaves home to find Basil of Baker Street, the titular mouse detective. Along the way, she is accompanied by Dr David Q Dawson, an army surgeon who had just returned home from Afghanistan. We meet Basil for the first time and... let me play a song that sums up the character perfectly.
This is one of the biggest problems I have with this movie, Basil is an egotistical narcissist with no respect for his clients, tells people that they have no time for their problems, does his job as a detective to satisfy his ego, and endangers two innocent bystanders.
I've gotten plenty of objections from GMD fans I've talked to elsewhere online, many of them believe that I'm criticizing him in bad faith, that he's not this terrible person I make him out to be, and many of my complaints were dismissed as hyperbole. So is this true? Am I taking Basil out of context and criticizing him in bad faith? Well... no! I'm sorry, there's nothing out of context about this. Here's all we see Basil do in the first act of the film!
Ignores people in need!
Tells a kid that he has no time for her problems!
Endangers two innocent bystanders, including said child!
Now all of the clips and stills are condensed of course, but the context is clear. You will note that not one of these scenes I've shown you contains anything other than Basil doing one of three things, acting entitled, being only loyal to himself, or doing his job for his personal gain. None of this is coming from me or what I think of the character, it's in the movie itself. Nothing out of context, nothing in bad faith!
When it comes to most Disney heroes and heroines, they have one thing in common, they're generally good people regardless of their flaws and they cared about the people in their lives. The only Disney character I can easily compare Basil to is Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, but from a non-Disney example, I thought of one character who instantly reminded me of Basil.
He's so close to Denzel Washington's character in Training Day, it's just insane. Both are amoral narcissists who do their jobs as detectives for their personal gain and endangered the lives of innocent people, but why no one acknowledged this about Basil, I don't get it. Yes, there are detectives both in media and real life who act like this, and we have a word for these people too, we call them "assholes"! Just because a detective has negative traits, it doesn't always mean it can piss you off when it's happening!
Usually, in good stories, there's some circumstances to that kind of behavior. Take Eddie Valiant from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. We see him being a jerk from the moment he was introduced, but there's another side to that. Eddie's brother was murdered by a cartoon and that led to his prejudice towards cartoons until the end of the movie. The only reason we see Basil do everything he did in he first act was to bolster his ego and impress Olivia and Dawson with how great he is, and I'm sorry, there's nothing heroic and good about any of this. That's just someone being a jerk for no reason and therefore giving the audience no reason to like him.
And they didn't make Basil this way to make him relatable, they did it because they thought it would be cute, because someone read the Sherlock Holmes books and decided "hey, people love Sherlock Holmes, so let's take that character, make him into a mouse, and BOOM! Instant laughs from the audience!" That's the problem, cute is all they were thinking of when they were creating Basil the way he was. No one was really thinking about what this implies about Basil as a person or how it impacted anything! There's, fundamentally speaking, nothing to like about this dude! What is there to care about other than that?
But the worst part is that Basil being an asshole wasn't actually my biggest problem. My biggest problem is that his pride, narcissism, and ego in the first act felt so completely pointless and had nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Take the Beast from Beauty and the Beast and Woody from Toy Story. These movies established both of these characters as flawed men and their selfish moments were essential to their character developments. We actually see their transformations from flawed individuals to selfless and kind people. But we don't see that in The Great Mouse Detective. It starts with Basil as a narcissist and moves on to something totally unrelated. We'll see how in part 2.
Why I Don't Find Ratigan A Great Villain
Now before I criticize the character, I have nothing against Vincent Price. There's obviously some joy with his performance, but I have problems with Ratigan in terms of how he was written. My problem with the character is that he's the reason why every other character in the film just comes across as stupid to me, and his plan for taking over Mousedom doesn't make much sense.
To put it simply, Ratigan has his peg-legged Gremlins rip off bat named Fidget kidnap Hiram so he can coerce the toymaker into building a robot version the the mouse queen, assassinate the actual queen by feeding her to his pet Power Ranger monster sized cat named Felicia, and trick the rodent population into believing that the queen would accept him as her royal consort.
One of the basic problems with the character is how direct and obvious he is about his intentions, and yet everyone but Basil seems to be completely oblivious to this. The rat committed these crimes for years with obvious intent of ruling Mousedom, and yet with all of this deliberate obviousness, everyone goes about their business like they have no idea that he could possibly up to something nefarious. When he does attempt to take over Mousedom, it doesn't occur to anyone that there could be something fishy about it (more on that in part 2), and when his lies were exposed, they act like this is the most surprising thing on Earth. I honestly believe that most of these rodent bystanders didn't catch on to an evil scheme just because the script didn't allow them too.
It's obvious. It's so laughably obvious with what he plans to do that it just boggles the mind, and what's even more mind boggling is the fact that he uses a toy maker as part of his plan. Like... he doesn't really need him right? I mean he's a professor, he could have built the machine himself. He has henchmen who are willing to do his devious crimes for him and we don't see them do much. Not really sure how kidnapping a toymaker benefits him! He'd probably carried his plan on time and on schedule if he hadn't kidnap Hiram, since he's clearly unwilling to do his crimes for him! Hmm..
I mean come on! Is Ratigan stupid? The dude had an airtight plan that no one in London saw through. He would've taken the throne with no one questioning this and he wouldn't have owed anyone! What did he need the Flavershams for? What could they possibly do for him other than building some stupid robot that either he or his henchmen could have built for themselves? Seriously, is he... I'm answering my own question. Yes! Ratigan is stupid! It's The Great Mouse Detective! Everyone is stupid!
What Is Up With The Infamous Burlesque Scene?
Before I end part one of this review, I have a question to ask GMD fans. If the movie is intended for kids, why is there a sexualized, overly sensual burlesque scene in the movie? Her revealing appearance is blatantly inappropriate for children and even worse, it has no effect on the plot, as with the rest of the first act, which we will explore in part two.
