Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas (2004)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Awesome Movie

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Watch Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas--it is excellent. It's animated holiday fun with heart--the Disney way! This sequel, done with Disney's new computer animation unit, has almost NO heart. I was so excited (in 2004) when I saw "Twice" was coming out, since I LOVE "Once". Absolute disappointment. Each of the stories is about selfishness! The first story involves Daisy Duck and Minnie Mouse trying to outdo each other at a skating event, which ends evenly only after Minnie is hurt in an accident. The second story is dreadful--Huey, Dewey, and Louie eat ALL of the Xmas Eve dessert BEFORE dinner, then make jokes about it at the table. They are sent to bed, where they make more jokes! Uncle Scrooge warns them not to make the mistake of ending up on the 'naughty list'--so the boys head to the North Pole with the intent of changing their names to the 'nice list'! In the process, they make a mess of the North Pole and the viewers are to feel as though the boys redeem themselves when they help clean up the fiasco THEY MADE. Next, Max gets angry because he is embarrassed about his dad, Goofy. Last, Mickey is trying to decorate his home for a Xmas party, but Pluto creates havoc during the process. Mickey ANGRILY kicks Pluto out to his doghouse IN THE SNOW, then feels guilty once Pluto runs away. Pluto ends up at the North Pole with reindeer that do not look like Disney characters. To this day, whenever Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas is on, I will lovingly watch (even though I own the DVD). If "Twice Upon" is on TV, I skip it--as you should.

I know the 3-D/CGI worshippers will dislike my heresy, but if ever there was a place NOT to use CGI, this is it. Most of these characters have been around for almost 75 years in their hand-drawn form, and that's what made them special. There was no need to re-make our favorites into what looks like plastic McDonald's toys, and these should be stuffed back into the bag (Santa's?). I'm glad I finally found a place to rent a copy rather than buying one, and it's obvious that the rental houses agree with my assessment, as I had to check on Netflix, two Blockbusters, and one Hollywood video before I could find a lone copy at a third Blockbuster. Please Disney, don't fix what ain't broke.

Jingle... jingle... I've waited quite a time for this one to happen and it was a logical evolution step (getting Mickey into 3D). And it worked. Disney Australia did a great job on this one and I'm really looking forward to more animation in 3D from them.The short stories are full of beautiful animated Christmas spirit. They have a nice humor and they tell you what really is important about Christmas (well, except they don't talk about Jesus Christ). I think this DVD will be part of our every-year-watch-it collection for Christmas times. So I really recommend buying this DVD. I think the production value is very high and that Disney has to make two more DVDs like this to earn money with this.Hohoho everyone, have fun.

Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas came out on DVD last week and I was a skeptic. Sure, Pixar and Disney have had (mostly) homeruns with their computer animated films. Sure, their are currently two computer animated films dominating the US domestic box-office,.....a death knell for traditional animation unfortunately. Still, I've enjoyed most of these films. Why not a computer animated Mickey, Donald, & Goofy? Well, why not indeed. Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas, is a good holiday family film. It isn't too cloyingly sweet, it's probably got more in common with recent Mickey/Donald/Goofy films than with Mickey's Christmas Carol (my personal fave), but, it certainly tries and actually has good stories (it's an anthology of mostly, fluffy yule-tide tales). I liked the Pluto/ Reindeer storyline in particular. Anyway, how does a CGI Mickey look? Surprisingly good. A few years ago a company released another ,...ahem,...homage to a classic Christmas special about a certain reindeer with a red nose. It stunk and it was CGI. Not so with this movie. Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas uses computer animation well and it looks good, has a good storyline, and is overall successful and worthy to add to your collection of Disney DVD's. I certainly hope we don't just get CGI animation from Disney or other companies anymore, although, it really looks like we may,...*sigh* But, if the quality is like Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas it'll definitely soften the blow. So, warm up some Cocoa and pop this one into your DVD player over the holidays.