DVD Review: Saludos Amigos / Three Caballeros
Saludos Amigos / Three Caballeros contains two separate feature length movies, one called Saludos Amigos and the other called The Three Caballeros. I wouldn't say that I thoroughly enjoyed Saludos Amigos, but it had some entertainment value and made me laugh a few times. The Three Caballeros, on the other hand, quickly invoked feelings of extreme boredom, mainly due to the fact that most of it was just plain singing, with no plot or jokes or anything to get emotionally involved.
Saludos Amigos is like a collection of four shorts that are tied together through some old live-action footage of what appears to be animators looking at people, places, and things, and then drawing them. It doesn't get the blood pumping or extract any laughter from the belly, but if you're one of those people that loves old footage I'd say you might enjoy it. I stress the word might because there really isn't a whole lot of the live action stuff, and not much happens in the footage that is there.
The first animated short about Lake Titicaca features Donal Duck, and I would consider it to be the best of everything on this disc. It is the only one that made me laugh, and not just once but several times. The second story is about a little airplane that needs to pick up a mail run when his dad becomes ill. The moral here felt identical to that little-engine-that-could story, but told in a way that wasn't nearly as good. The plane showboats and gets into trouble, then it tries really hard to overcome the tall mountain, only to run out of gas and go into a tailspin... then magically survive and appear at home successful as can be.
Goofy is the star of the next short, which is one of those tutorials on how to do things, with Goofy always messing it up like he does. This was the second best on the disc. It was entertaining, though I never actually laughed out loud like I did with Donald's short. And finally we have some parrot named Jose Carioca, which I found to be rather dull.
The Three Caballeros is difficult to describe. It starts with Donal opening a package addressed to him, pulling out the projector, and watching a film. But the film quickly turns into some kind of psychedelic musical that looks like it was written by a bunch of people high on the good stuff. It was a bunch of singing and dancing and colors, being a mixture of live action and animation. About half way through I just couldn't take it anymore and ended up fast-forwarding through the rest. Basically, I hated this one. It didn't hold my interest at all.
Since both of these movies focus on areas where Spanish is the spoken language, it's only fitting that a Spanish language track is provided (in addition to French and English). There are a few bonus features here, which include Backstage Disney: South of the Border, an excerpt of a CBC interview with Walt Disney, and two bonus shorts.
So your tastes may differ than mine, but for me this was one average flick and one extremely dull flick, which just don't add up to an entertaining, enjoyable experience.
