The Black Cauldron (1985)

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

A young boy and a bunch of misfit friends embark on a quest to find a dark magic item of ultimate power before a diabolical tyrant can.With the budget of $44 million, it was the most expensive animated film ever made at the time. Earning $21.3 million domestically, it led to a loss for the studio, putting the future of Walt Disney Feature Animation in jeopardy. Due to its poor performance, Disney released the film for the first time on home video in 1998.Despite growing up in the 1980s, I actually never heard of this Disney film or any of its characters. Even now (2017) when I finally watched it, it seemed like a film that never existed. If Disney tried to bury it, I can understand it being forgotten throughout the 90s, especially as their second golden age was overshadowing decades of duds.The movie itself is neither good nor bad. A few repeat viewings and it would probably grow on me, but there are no really memorable characters. And there are no songs, which is what really makes a Disney cartoon immortal.

Need to say, the only good thing about The Black Cauldron it's good quality of backgrounds animation, a quality that was not seen in the Disney studio since "Sleeping Beauty" (1959). But honestly, I don't care if this film has become "cult". Remains as bad as ever.First, Taran is the most forgetabble protagonist in Disney history. Unlike other friendly boys as Mowgli (1967) or Arthur (1963), Taran is boring and has no charisma. All other characters also suffer from the same problem. The villain looks like a character who was taken from some cheap episode of Scooby-Doo. Fairies / gnomes (or what the hell are those things) sound like dull rip-offs of the Seven Dwarfs. Gurgi was created to be friendly and for we to care with him, but he's just an animated version of Jar Jar Binks we wish to see dead.As if things were not already worse enough, the script of this film is problematic. In the beginning, we have a nut with "magical" powers (in my opinion the only sympathetic character in the movie), which seems to be the essential key to the climax of the film, but in half the movie to the end, she simply leaves to follow Taran and disappear in history. In my view, a serious flaw script. Add to the fact that history doesn't have any memorable moment, and we realized the disaster that The Black Cauldron is.

I found this to be an excellent film!The voice acting was brilliant.The music was brilliant.The main characters (good and evil) were brilliant.The action was brilliant.Capable of making you feel emotion - happy, sad, baleful, hilarity, you name it.And I do love the fact that this is one of Disney's darkest.It's my favorite Disney film ever.And if you're gonna tell me "Read the Books!" don't bother. I tried the Books and they were horrible.

I am currently reading The Chronicles of Prydain and thinking that it would be good to see the movie as I read, I picked up this movie.What A SHOCK!!!! All of the other main characters with the exception of Hen Wen, Taran, Princess Eilonwy, Girgy and F. Flam are missing and this movie starts off with Taran's mentor as a bumbling fool, as a opposed to a serious scholar and goes downhill from there.It goes on with tons of added ridiculous characters, scenes and characterizations of some of the people in the book.Overall, it wanders so far away from the book and with so many laughable, non-existent occurrences it becomes unwatchable as you watch in horror this train wreck of a movie! Don't bother with this mess, listen to the unabridged recordings from Listening Library and embrace this CLASSIC series of novels!