(The Disneycember logo is shown, before showing clips from The Three Caballeros)
Doug (vo): Three Caballeros is probably much better known than Saludos Amigos. But to be fair, they're not that much different. True in comparing the two, there does seem to be a lot more passion thrown into this one. It's longer, there's more energy, and as far as their basic cartoon animation goes, this is some of their best. I mean, the motion and the line work just leaps off the screen sometimes. Look at how fast they're going.
[One of the film's musical numbers are shown, mostly showing off the fast motion of the animation and characters]
Panchito: [Singing] Through fair and stormy weather...
Story and review
Doug (vo): But much like Saludos Amigos, there isn't really a story, or, well, in about as much as, it's just Donald opening some presents. Yeah, that's the story, isn't that riveting? He gets a package on his birthday, which, it turns out, is Friday the 13th. Bet you didn't know that. And each present, it turns out, is a presentation, on some place he's never been to before. And like the last film, there's shorts, there's songs, there's Donald Duck acting like Donald Duck, and at first, I was kind of getting into it. I was kind of enjoying all the randomness mixed in with the music and, like I said, that really fast paced animation. And the stories were a lot more memorable, too. There's one about a penguin trying to get to warmer climate, another one about a burro who can fly, but then the stories sort of stop and we get that green parrot again. Him and Donald look around Brazil a bit, they dance, they sing, they have fun, I guess. And then he opens the last package and we have that...woodpecker thing? I'm not sure what he is. But he comes out to sing about Mexico.
[Several clips showing Donald in live-action sequences are shown]
Doug (vo): And, literally, the last third of this movie is just Donald trying to get laid. Every time you see him, he's fawning over a woman, or women, and just trying to get somebody to tickle his tail feathers. Two thirds of the movie is pretty much like just being at a party, which at first, sounds awesome, but at some point, you kind of wanna leave that party and find something else, or talk to somebody, or...take a breather, or, I don't know, but there's only so long you can do it. And that's the problem with this film. After a while, it gets tiring. The animation continues to impress, as well as some really good live-action mixing. But you're just sort of watching people dance most of the time, and for a few minutes, it's fine, but, for a whole second half of a movie, it gets pretty old pretty fast.
[The film's final scenes are shown]
Doug (vo): Then we just cut to the three of them acting goofy in abstract land again, they jump around, shoot some guns, fire off some fireworks, and...that's it. That's the movie. Um...fun? There's a lot of things I really like about this film. I like a lot of the scenes, I like a lot of the animations and the short stories, which is why I hate it so much when I see it all together, because it suddenly becomes boring. This is one of those movies where on the Disney Channel, they would chop it up and they would just show it as little shorts on their cartoon shows, and that's really where it belongs. I can't see this really functioning as a film. Maybe if they went for more for a Cirque du Soleil thing or kept a little bit more focus or even lack of focus, just something that went all the way. Here, it seems like they kind of want to do short stories, and now they kind of wanna do it as one long party, and now they kinda want make it educational, but now they kinda wanna make it silly. The only thing that's consistently good, as I said before, is the animation, which is really stylized and fun, but for me, I don't think that holds the film.
Final thought
Doug (vo): If you wanna see it just for the motion and the cool drawings, I'd say maybe check it out. But even then, that's a big maybe. There's other Disney films that do animation better. And they have good story and characters to go along with it, so I'd probably just recommend those. But if you're curious enough, it does have some good moments. Take that for what it's worth.
[The end of "The Three Caballeros" theme song segment is shown, with Panchito Pistoles holding the final note for an insanely long time while Jose and Donald try to shut him up]