Topolino - Strepitoso Natale

Jingle... jingle... I've waited quite a time for this one to happen and it was a logical evolution step (getting Mickey into 3D). And it worked. Disney Australia did a great job on this one and I'm really looking forward to more animation in 3D from them.

The short stories are full of beautiful animated Christmas spirit. They have a nice humor and they tell you what really is important about Christmas (well, except they don't talk about Jesus Christ).

I think this DVD will be part of our every-year-watch-it collection for Christmas times. So I really recommend buying this DVD. I think the production value is very high and that Disney has to make two more DVDs like this to earn money with this.

Hohoho everyone, have fun.

Where 'Once Upon a Christmas' was a standard Disney cartoon with the famous characters as you are used to seeing them, this film presents five computer-generated shorts including a battle on ice with Minnie Mouse squaring up to Daisy Duck; Mickey Mouse losing Pluto after an argument, whereby the hapless dog gets adopted by reindeer; and Donald Duck's nephews causing havoc in Santa's workshop at the North Pole. The other two shorts - Donald Duck losing the Christmas spirit; and Goofy's son Max trying to impress his girlfriend even while his dad is around, are less memorable, but still good.

The CGI animation doesn't sit well with Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Pluto, and so takes some getting used to - however, once this obstacle is overcome, the film can be enjoyed, and with modern touches will probably entertain the little ones more than its predecessor.

Some complaints have been made about the computer animation, but at least these are new shorts and not just old ones thrown together with a thin story line. I liked seeing these characters animated this way. Not that this computer animation is better (or even as good) than the traditional, but having never seen these classic characters like this was interesting. The overall content is very good. The weakest story is the first one with Minnie and Daisy. The best one, by far, is the last: MICKEY'S DOGGONE Christmas. This short in itself is worth the price of the DVD. Santa's reindeer Donner steals the show in this fast, fun and very funny short.

This isn't your father's Disney. The original Disney franchise players now reside in the Land Where Everyone is Nice, preschool toons rendered in kiddie-grade Pixarish 3D. Mickey always was a little wimpy but even Donald has been completely Dippified with the Evil Daisy Duck browbeating him at every opportunity. He was a WWII hero for chrissakes, selling War Bonds to defeat the Nazis! Goofy has become a caricature of himself and his goofiness has been choreographed to a perfect death, Huey Dewey & Louie can't stay conniving for more than 30 seconds without guilt spoiling it all, while Pluto would be better off on Animal Control's 3 Day Plan. Its not pretty, what they've done to these old Toons.

The only way to reclaim my interest after this would be Donald doing his popular 'Who's Your Daddy?' with Daisy sparking his enthusiasm. I'd like to see someone with a duckbill pull that off They could've made it an Easter egg, being ducks after all. I can give this one a 7 because kids like it. They don't know any better.

Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas came out on DVD last week and I was a skeptic. Sure, Pixar and Disney have had (mostly) homeruns with their computer animated films. Sure, their are currently two computer animated films dominating the US domestic box-office,.....a death knell for traditional animation unfortunately. Still, I've enjoyed most of these films. Why not a computer animated Mickey, Donald, & Goofy? Well, why not indeed.

Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas, is a good holiday family film. It isn't too cloyingly sweet, it's probably got more in common with recent Mickey/Donald/Goofy films than with Mickey's Christmas Carol (my personal fave), but, it certainly tries and actually has good stories (it's an anthology of mostly, fluffy yule-tide tales). I liked the Pluto/ Reindeer storyline in particular. Anyway, how does a CGI Mickey look? Surprisingly good. A few years ago a company released another ,...ahem,...homage to a classic Christmas special about a certain reindeer with a red nose. It stunk and it was CGI. Not so with this movie. Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas uses computer animation well and it looks good, has a good storyline, and is overall successful and worthy to add to your collection of Disney DVD's. I certainly hope we don't just get CGI animation from Disney or other companies anymore, although, it really looks like we may,...*sigh* But, if the quality is like Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas it'll definitely soften the blow. So, warm up some Cocoa and pop this one into your DVD player over the holidays.