Get a Horse!

Get a Horse! is a fantastic short film with a quick but very enjoyable storyline filled lots of fun and colourful characters.I really enjoyed the mix of the old fashioned black and white animation and the CGI animation that is used in every animated film that's made today.The film showed before Frozen,and it really got me in to the Disney spirit and got me excited for the feature film.Ir was great seeing the very lovable Mickey Mouse for the first time in years on the big screen once again,and this was a very interesting way of bringing him back.All in all,Get a Horse is a great short film that Disney fans will love.

Mickey and Minnie Mouse go on a wagon ride,but Pete gets in the way when he tries to once again kidnap Minnie.

When I first heard there would be a new Mickey cartoon, I was extremely hyped up and what really got me into it was the fact that it would feature Uncle Walt's archival recordings as Mickey Mouse, and it would mix hand-drawn animation with CGI. When I finally saw it, I was very pleased with the outcome. The comedy is genuine with the imaginative slapstick we loved in the classic Mickey shorts, no gross-out gags whatsoever. It even includes a few pop culture visual jokes like the Apple ringtone and Horace's Captain America T- shirt(usually, it would ruin animated adaptations of the beloved classics *AHEM* The Lorax, but here it worked cleverly). The visuals are also groundbreaking, it is fantastic what they do with combining two different animation mediums. Overall, Get A Horse! was an adorable, hilarious, and faithful short that celebrates the history of the mouse we all know and love in so many inventive ways possible.

I am very much in support of short films getting into cinemas, even if it mostly occurs either as part of festivals, or as large studio projects which accompany a main feature film; so it is cheering how many people would have seen this short film ahead of the film Frozen – albeit as they would have seen it as a free cartoon rather than having their eyes opened to the world of short film as a form. Anyway, this short opens in the frame size and animation style of the 1930's cartoons, with a simple scene of Mickey and Minnie Mouse heading out on their wagon, only for the "wave of the future" to come up behind them in the form of Peg-Leg Pete in his motor car, and start to make trouble.

Watching this short without any knowledge of what it does is quite a lovely experience, because just as you start to accept the rather small square image in the middle of this larger screen, suddenly the 4th wall gets broken and we have action occurring within the theatre itself as well as back inside the 1930's cartoon. It is cleverly done so that the animation transitions between modern CGI style, and black & white drawings, as the characters move between the sides of the screen. I also enjoyed the way the screen itself moved and was affected by the action – I really am not interested in watching films in 3D, but it would have been fun to see what this played like if you were not expecting it.

The action itself is a good lot of slapstick and, while I wasn't roaring with laughter throughout, I found it consistently amusing and fun, which is all I was really looking for. Perhaps understandably it won the Best Animated Short and, as much as I prefer that the big players do not dominate these smaller categories, I don't begrudge Get a Horse! because it is cleverly done, and delivered with a lot of energy and cheer.

When the film begins, you don't think it's a CGI or 3-D film. It looks like a Mickey Mouse film circa 1929--complete with scratchy film stock! However, when the baddie, Pete, tosses Mickey THROUGH the screen and he becomes a full-color 3-D character, you know you are in for something unique! What's next? See the film--it's well worth it.

This is an interesting case where it turns out that I liked the short more than the feature film it accompanied. In the case of "Get a Horse!", it was shown before the Disney CGI film "Frozen"--a moderately enjoyable full-length film. However, the short was indeed magical and appeared to be a real work of love. I say this because the folks who made the film did a great job of trying to replicate the exact look and sound of the very early Mickey Mouse cartoons--something that is no small feat! Unlike most 3-D films I've seen, I think it's very important you try to see "Get a Horse!" in 3-D. This is because rarely has another 3-D film tried so hard to incorporate this sort of camera-work into the film (another exception being the underrated "How to Train Your Dragon"). Most 3-D films, to me, seem as if they just tacked on the 3-D at the end and didn't plan for the use of 3-D all along (this is especially true of the live action 3-D films).

Overall, a wonderful little film that no doubt will get nominated for Best Animated Short for the Oscars. If it doesn't, I'll be incredibly surprised as the film isn't just fun but an amazing film technically.

UPDATE: I just saw this short again as part of the Oscar-nominated Animated Shorts show in selected theaters. Although it was NOT shown in 3-D this time, it didn't really seem to matter. Why I am doing this update is that in comparison to all the other nominees, "Get a Horse!" is light-years better. And, because it's so far superior I am changing my original score from 9 to 10. What a wonderful film and I like the rather playful and fun nature of the short.

'GET A HORSE!': Three Stars (Out of Five)

A Disney animated short film that debuted in theaters before the blockbuster 'FROZEN'. The movie is 6 minutes long and is both computer animated and hand-drawn. It's also in black-and-white and color and was released in both 3D and regular 2D versions (like the movie it plays with). It was directed by Lauren MacMullan and features archive voice recordings of Walt Disney as Mickey Mouse! It's the first Mickey Mouse cartoon since 1995's 'RUNAWAY BRAIN' and tells the story of Mickey going on a wagon ride with his friends (Minnie, Horace Horsecollar, and Clarabelle Cow) when the antagonist Peg-Leg Pete attacks them. Mickey and Horace are thrown out of the movie world (and into the theater) where they fight Peg-Leg by flipping the theater screen (and rotating gravity inside the movie). The film is amusing and fun and very reminiscent of classic Mickey Mouse cartoons. Should be nostalgic for fans of the iconic Disney character and entertaining for new (younger) viewers as well!

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