Tutti in scena

Get a Horse! (2013)

*** (out of 4)

This winning short from Disney was originally released and played before the FROZEN feature. The story is quite simple and Mickey and Minnie are trying to battle Peg-Leg Pete who eventually throws Mickey off the "movie" and into the movie crowd. Once in the crowd Mickey has to use some imagination to try and rescue Minnie who is still in the movie. GET A HORSE! was rather remarkable to see on the big screen because it starts off in B&W just like the original Mickey Mouse shorts and I thought this was a great way to show younger kids a bit of the past. Once the characters start falling from the movie, Mickey then turns to color and he even makes the screen wider to fit today's movies. For the most part I thought this 6-minute short contained a lot of wonderful imagination and especially once the characters were off the screen and seeing how they could defeat the villain. There were a lot of great laughs throughout the picture and especially with some of the harmless violence that was in so many of the original cartoons.

A blast from the past as Mickey Mouse and friends deal with the lascivious Peg-Leg Pete in this respectful and loving tribute to Walt Disney's early Mickey Mouse cartoons. It's done with a delightful mix of hand-drawn black & white animation in the style of those early cartoons and modern CGI color animation, still holding true to the original models of the characters. I love that they also used some archival audio from Walt, Billy Bletcher, and Marcellite Garner. Frankly, it's the best Mickey short in decades. I've always enjoyed the first Mickey cartoons a lot. The character has long since become the poster child for corny but this short hearkens back to a time when he was fresh, playful, and funny. Kudos to Lauren MacMullan and co. for this creative and clever short that mixes the present and the past in a way that should bring smiles to the faces of young and old alike.

This short is such an amazing little visual work of wonder, it's really one of those types of animations that will make you fall in love with the cartoon shorts of the 30s all over again, and it actually changed my outlook on modern animation a little. It's fantastic just how well they replicated the endearingly scratchy antiquated animations of the olden days, they did it almost perfectly, except for the voices which aren't quite tinny enough and the movements are a bit too fluid in parts, but they did a brilliant job with this nonetheless, I love how the use the very old characters of Clarabel Cow and Peg leg Pete in such a fun way. And the short gets really good when the characters actually realise they're in a cartoon and literally break the fourth wall as they burst out of the movie screen and run back and forth between the 'real' world and the world of their adventures as it wonderfully dances between both visual styles of animation, juggling the both of them beautifully, making them appear as two sides of the same coin. It's very respectful to the vintage style of the animation while still subtly having an element of passing on the torch to it, "Make way for the future!" is a line I don't really care for, but it did kind of sum up a part of what I thought the short was driving at, things change into other things all the time, like the telegram gradually became the telephone that Mickey calls Pegleg Pete on, perhaps animation was always meant to become what it largely is now, and while it's not my personal preference when it comes to animation, I'm glad it's still thriving and bringing joy to children to this day. Beautifully done and very sweet short, I appreciate what it tries to do, well worth seeing for the concept, animation magic and the nostalgia, enjoy! 💓

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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