Fantasia 2000 **** (Disney Animation Studio) – Classic Movie Review 1251

Roy E. Disney, the nephew of Walt, co-produced Fantasia 2000, which entered production in 1990, was released in 1999 and features seven new segments performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with conductor James Levine.

There’s lots of entertainment value to be found in Walt Disney’s well animated, entertaining 1999 revision of the studio’s 1940 classic, made for the IMAX theatres. Only Mickey Mouse in Paul Dukas’s ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ remains from the original film. The new segments are enjoyable, but somehow the very special magic of the original has gone.

Celebrities Steve Martin, Bette Midler, Quincy Jones, James Earl Jones, Itzhak Perlman and Angela Lansbury introduce the items. It begins with an abstract battle of light and darkness set to the music of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. This time the menu is:  the adventures of a Humpback Whale calf and his pod set to The Pines of Rome, the humorous story of several lives in 1930s New York City, scored to Rhapsody in Blue (excellent), the fairy tale The Steadfast Tin Soldier set to Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No 2 Allegro, a goofy Flamingo causing havoc in his flock with his yo-yo to the tune of the finale of Carnival of the Animals, Pomp and Circumstance starring Donald Duck as a harried assistant to Noah on his Ark and finally a tale of the life, death and renewal of a forest set to Firebird Suite.

Fantasia 2000 premiered at Carnegie Hall on December 17 1999 as part of a five-city live concert tour, followed by a four-month engagement in IMAX cinemas and a wide release in regular theatres in 2000.

(C) Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1251

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