Mickey's House of Villains

As a huge Disney fan, I enjoyed this movie. It was fun and entertaining, while being nothing groundbreaking. Just for the record, I love the show House of Mouse, it is one of those shows with a great concept and makes me feel all nostalgic. Mickey's House of Villains had a really interesting idea and made the most of it.

Mickey's House of Villains does have its problems though. The film is too short at only an hour and a quarter or so, and as much as the shorts were so wonderful to watch too much time was spent until the main focus of the story was even introduced. And I also felt they could have done much more with the ending which felt rushed.

Flaws aside, the animation is great I feel and sticks to the style of the show. I especially liked Jafar's entrance from The Cave of Wonders, talk about a stylish entrance. The music is a delight as well, the incidental music is really good, but the song It's Our House Now was not only catchy and entertaining it was the highlight of the film. The dialogue is good, humorous often, and Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald are great to watch. Other than It's Our House Now, two assets stood out. One was seeing those shorts, How to Haunt a House was hilarious, Donald and the Gorilla was delightful for a first time viewer and Lonesome Ghosts is a Halloween classic as is Trick or Treat. Dance of the Goofys was quite cute and funny, and I enjoyed Mickey and Minnie's take on Hansel and Gretel especially for the use of Danse Macabre. The second asset was seeing all those villains, Jafar steals the show, but Ursula, Chernabog, Cruella DeVil, Captain Hook and Hades are also delightful to watch. It was nice to see Maleficent and the Wicked Queen as well, but they should have been given more to say.

Overall, while nothing groundbreaking it is a very entertaining film. 7/10 Bethany Cox

2001's Snowed in at the House of Mouse was better put together. It made more sense. To many short cartoons in the House of Villains, to little club scenes. Jafar says that he's taking over at the start of the film, good opening by the way. Then the shorts, couple more snipplets of the House but nothing gets the story moving. Then at the end Jafar and the villains take over, kick the Fav Five and Co out of the club only to be taken back after another cartoon or two.

The collections of shorts in a HoM shell have the potential to be good if Disney decides to cut down with the cartoons and put more story in the House itself. Next year... Valentines Day, 2004... Eastern. There enough potential themes for future movies.

If there's anything I learned by watching both House of Villains and Snowed in at the House of Mouse, it is that the House of Mouse format just doesn't seem to fit as a full-fledged movie. I definitely enjoy the House of Mouse series, but both these movies just seem to drag on a little too long.

This is not to say that I didn't like any of the HOM movies. I thought all the cartoons showed on the Christmas special were great, and I thought most of the ones on Villains were great too. However, Villains has the upper hand when it comes to the in-between segments. The story for Villains was much better and interesting as the Villains tried to take over the House of Mouse.

However, that is really just a small part of this movie. I still think the greatest draw is the animated shorts. Villains has more of a Halloween theme as they showcase Disney classics like Donald Duck & the Gorilla and Lonesome Ghosts and even new spooky shorts like the hilarious How to Haunt a House. This cartoon resurrects the classic Goofy How-to cartoons and gives it a paranormal twist. A narrator instructs Goofy and the viewers on how to properly act like a ghost. These are the type of cartoons that Goofy is best at as he bumbles and stumbles along trying to scare Donald, who definitely added even more humor to this cartoon. Even Mickey has a funny cameo.

So overall, Mickey's House of Villains has its entertaining moments, but it's nothing too extraordinary. My suggestion is to check out the whole thing once, and from then on, watch the cartoons and segments you enjoy the most. There are some good ones in there!

My IMDb Rating: 7/10

In this halloween special we see that the Disney Villains are trying to take over the House Of Mouse featuring the Villains which are: Jafar, Cruella De Vil, Ursula, Captain Hook, Hades and many more Villains that sing a song called it's our house now, even though Pat Carroll passed away on July 30th from this year for not only being the voice actress of Ursula (The Little Mermaid) and her sister Morgana (The Little Mermaid 2: Return To The Sea), she also voiced the grandmother (My Neighbor Totoro), Grandma Arbuckle (Garfield Thanksgiving and Christmas specials), she also voiced Kookoo (Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers) and Old Lady Crowley (Tangled The Series) (Season 1). She is at least in heaven with Samuel E Wright, the segments were fun, the music is cool and the characters are cool.

What a great song!!

Anyway, this House of Mouse movie was much better than the Christmas one. The concept and plot of the villians was very interesting. Many of the segments were hysterical. Especially "How to be Ghost" (or something like that). You could tell that "How to be a Ghost" was animated very well. The classic segments were a great addition! Also, the music and animation matched perfectly for the "Dance of the Goofys" and the "Hansel-mickey and Gretel-minnie".

Great movie and the DVD's game was also very well done.

10/10