Founded by brothersWaltandRoy O. Disney,the Walt Disney Corporation has, over the last hundred years, grown from a studio focused on animated short films to one of the largest and most influential multimedia juggernauts in the world. Having absorbed other companies like Lucasfilm, Marvel, and 20th Century Studios, Disney’s catalog of movies has grown tremendously. Even before the merger, they were consistently making successful films on a critical and financial level, with many of their animated films, in particular, ranking among the best in the industry.
Of course, not all of Disney’s films have been successful. They’ve balanced out their record of amazing films with a large variety of contenders for the worst, some of which go even further back than their current trend of mediocrity.It’s good to look back at what can be found at the bottom of the pile, both as a form of catharsis for those displeased with the company’s current actions, and to help showcase why their best movies deserve their titles.
17’The Black Cauldron' (1985)
Directed by Ted Berman and Richard Rich
In the land of Prydain, Taran (Grant Bardsley) works as a young assistant to Dallben the Enchanter (Freddie Jones), whose pet pig, Hen Wen, has prophetic powers. Unfortunately, Taran cannot prevent Hen Wen from being kidnapped by the Horned King (Sir John Hurt), a skeletal warlord who wishes to use her to locate a magic artifact called the Black Cauldron. As Taran tries to rescue Hen Wen, he meets a group of unlikely companions who agree to help him find the cauldron first.
The Black Cauldroncame out during Disney’s tumultuous Dark Age and was such a financial disaster that it nearly destroyed their animation department. A major reason for this was thatthe film didn’t know who it was for: it had a darker aesthetic and more grim tone than any animated film before it, but still tried to cater to general audiences with gags, predictable fantasy tropes, and side characters trying too hard to be endearing. The worst offender is a furry creature called Gurgi (John Byner), who ranks amongDisney’s most annoying characters.
The Black Cauldron
16’The Pacifier' (2005)
Directed by Adam Shankman
Following the death of government programmer Howard Plummer (Tate Donovan), his widow, Julie (Faith Ford), is escorted to Switzerland to recover the contents of his safety deposit box. While she’s gone, U.S. Navy SEAL lieutenant Shane Wolfe (Vin Diesel) is left to watch over her five children and search the house for Howard’s secret project, GHOST. Unfortunately, the assignment proves to be more than Shane anticipated as he finds himself forced to keep house and play father-figure for the kids.
The Pacifieris one of the lesser examplesof a large, muscular man comically defeated by children and domestic life. Occasionally, it’s able to tug at the heartstrings as Shane bonds with the kids and helps them through their individual grieving processes, but it’s weighted down by unfunny humor, a needlessly complex plot, and too many side-characters.It’s also tonally all over the place, going from comical scenes of Shane pulling a diaper out of a ball pit to implications that the eldest son, Seth (Max Thieriot), might be a Neo-Nazi.
The Pacifier
15’Cars 2' (2011)
Directed by John Lasseter
Before he can enjoy his off-season, four-time Piston Cup champion Lighting McQueen (Owen Wilson) is challenged by Italian racer Francesco Bernoulli (John Turturro) to patriate in the World Grand Prix, held by Sir Miles Axlerod (Eddie Izzard) to promote his new, environmentally safe fuel, Allinol. McQueen brings his best friend, Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), but in Tokyo, Mater makes a scene due to his naivete, and while trying to clean up, gets caught in a battle between spy cars and evil henchmen. This leads to British spies Finn McMissile (Sir Michael Cane) and Holly Swift (Emily Mortimer) to mistake Mater for an American spy and bring him up to speed about a conspiracy to sabotage the race.
While the originalCarsfilm is notone of Pixar’s best movies, it at least had a decent message about humility and kindness and one of Pixar’s all-time best climaxes. The same cannot be said for this film, which hasa convoluted and often outright stupid plotthat puts Mater into the role of Maxwell SmartfromGet Smartby dumbing down what are supposed to be experienced British agents.Cars 2is also the only film in the franchise not to have Lightning as the main character, which is even more notable whenCars 3pretends this film never happened.
14’Home on the Range' (2004)
Directed by Will Finn and John Sanford
Maggie (Roseanne Barr) is a show cow who is sold to a small farm called Patch of Heaven after her owner’s herd was stolen by notorious cattle rustler Alameda Slim (Randy Quaid). Unfortunately, the bank demands that Patch of Heaven’s owner, Pearl (Carole Cook), repay her debt in three days or her land will be auctioned off. Teaming up with local cows Grace (Jennifer Tilly) and Mrs. Calloway (Judi Dench), Maggie tries to get an extension on the loan before deciding to capture Slim and use his bounty to save the farm.
At the time of release,Home on the Rangewas seen asthe movie that killed Disney’s 2D animation, and while not completely earned due to the shifting landscape of the 2000s, it certainly didn’t help. Much likeThe Aristocats, this movie is concerned with only pleasing very young children, but older audiences couldn’t get behind its simple story and garish visuals. It also doesn’t help that the film contains some ofDisney’s most hated characters.
Home On The Range
13’The Wild' (2006)
Directed by Steve “Spaz” Williams
At the Central Park Zoo, Samson the lion (Kiefer Sutherland) is a major attraction thanks to his mighty roar, which he attributes to having grown up in the wild, but struggles with raising his pre-teen son, Ryan (Greg Cipes). After an argument, Ryan accidentally gets locked inside a metal container bound for Africa. With the help of his friends Benny the squirrel (Jim Belushi), Nigel the koala (Eddie Izzard), Bridget the giraffe (Janeane Garofalo), and Larry the anaconda (Richard Kind), Samson escapes from the zoo and steals a boat to rescue his son.
The Wildis a black sheep among Disney films, and fittingly, failed to win audiences over due to itsoff-putting animation and lackluster storytelling. Most of the film feels like a ripoff ofMadagascar, with a sprinkling ofFinding Nemoin regard to Samson and his son’s estranged relationship and the father having to go on a journey to rescue him. The third act sees the most original content, but it goes off the walls in its insanity, withWilliam Shatnerplaying a zealous wildebeest who wants to disrupt the natural order by hunting and killing a lion.
12’Planes' (2013)
Directed by Klay Hall
Dusty Crophopper (Dane Cook) is a young crop duster who dreams of flying in the Wings Around the Globe Rally race. Though he is able to qualify with help from his friends, Dusty faces steep competition, especially from three-time defending champion Ripslinger (Roger Craig Smith). If his fellow racers weren’t bad enough, Dusty also has a fear of heights that prevents him from flying at optimal levels.
Planesis aspin-off to Pixar’s lucrativeCarsfranchise, but fails to even reach the levels of the first movie in terms of emotional impact or likable characters. The plot is as cliché as can be expected from a sports film: a plucky underdog makes his way to the big leagues, overcomes adversity, beats the bully, and gets the girl. None of the characters stand out from their most basic archetypes, andnone of the film’s emotional moments come close to matchingCars’phenomenal climax.
11’Mulan II' (2004)
Directed by Darrell Rooney and Lynne Sutherland
It’s been a month since she defeated the Huns and saved China. Fa Mulan (Ming-Na Wen) is approached by General Li Shang (BD Wong) with a proposal of marriage, which she happily accepts. Unfortunately, doing so means that Shang’s ancestral guardians will take over the role of protecting Mulan, prompting Mushu (Mark Moseley) to try and sabotage their relationship so he can keep his job. When the Mongols begin to threaten China’s borders, the Emperor (Pat Morita) tasks Mulan and Shang with escorting his three daughters to Qui Gong to form a marriage alliance, but Mulan helps the princesses pursue their interests.
Mulan IIis a selfish movie that places personal happiness above the greater good, and as such,no character comes out of it unscathed. While the princess storyline is meant to encourage young girls to follow their desires, in the context of the movie, the lack of a marriage alliance with Qui Gong should spell the doom for China, and Mushu’s actions to break up Mulan and Shang are so petty that they destroy what was once one ofDisney’s best animal side-characters. On a more technical side,Mulan IIfails the legacy of the original in every way, with cheap animation, weak songs, and a resolution that sees none of the characters give anything up to get their happy ending.
10’Alice Through the Looking Glass' (2016)
Directed by James Bobin
Returning from a three-year voyage to China, Alice Kingsleigh (Mia Wasikowska) learns that her ex-fiancé Lord Hamish Ascot (Leo Bill) has taken over her father’s company and plans to use Alice’s home as leverage to claim her ship. She then follows a butterfly back to Wonderland, where she learns that the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) believes his family is still alive and, in his attempts to locate them, is spiraling deeper into madness. Alice goes to Time (Sacha Baron Cohen) for help, and when he says the past can’t be changed, Alice defies him and travels into the past to try and not only save the Hatter’s family but maybe even prevent the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) from becoming a tyrant.
Alice Through the Looking Glasspossesses the same visual splendor as its predecessor, but the plot doesn’t even attempt to stay faithful to these classic characters or the world of Wonderland.The story is a waste of time that recycles old ideasas the audience waits for Alice to catch on to the fact that time cannot be altered and you have to fix the past in the present, something that most viewers either already know or figure out much quicker than she does. The Mad Hatter loses what little charm he had in the first movie, and the Red Queen feels shoehorned into the story, with bothDepp and Carter sleepwalking through their performances.
Alice Through the Looking Glass
9’Wish' (2023)
Directed by Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn
The kingdom of Rosas is ruled over by the magician king Magnifico (Chris Pines), who collects the greatest wishes of his subjects and selects one to be granted once a month. While applying to be his apprentice, Asha (Ariana DeBose) discovers that Magnifico is highly selective about what wishes he grants, and refuses to give back the ones he never intends to grant. Distraught, Asha wishes on a star for a way to change things, and an anthropomorphic wishing star descends to Earth to help her.
Wishwas made to celebrate Disney’s one hundredth anniversary, butthe final result is nothing less than a soulless cash grabwith the barest effort put into it. The plot, jokes, and characters are nothing but callbacks to better Disney films and feel more like needless padding than joyful homages. The songs are some of the worst in any Disney film, and upon release, many speculatedan AI wrote them.
8’Chicken Little' (2005)
Directed by Mark Dindal
Chicken Little (Zach Braff) is turned into the town pariah after he causes a panic thinking that the sky is falling. His luck changes when he tries out for the school baseball team and does surprisingly well, becoming the town darling and re-earning the love and respect of his father, Buck Cluck (Garry Marshall). However, Chicken Littel discovers that what he thought was the sky falling was actually a piece of an invisible alien spacecraft, and tries to warn everyone of the coming invasion.
Chicken Littlemight just be the most mean-spirited of the company’s animated movies, and fittinglyranks as one of Disney’s worst. The first half is pretty much watching Chicken Little suffer as he is treated terribly by both the town and his own father, who is so ashamed of his son that he throws him under the bus rather than stand up for him. The second half at least has some decent visuals due to the design of the aliens and their ships, but the message about the importance of family is undercut, especially regarding Buck’s turnaround.
