Simon's Movie Reviews

Disney’s “The Lion King” (1994), directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, is two spots ahead of “Aladdin” on Empire Magazine greatest movies list. It makes sense since   it has once again all the elements of the classic Disney animated movies: great hand-drawn animation, themes of good versus evil, comedy sidekicks, cute animals, musical numbers and father issues. The story line in “The Lion King” actually tries to be a bit deeper by borrowing elements from “Hamlet.” If you are going to have a Shakespearean villain, you might as well have him voiced by Jeremy Irons. Since Disney has always been keen to market its product on every platform as soon as possible, the first I saw of this movie was in an illustrated book before the movie itself even came out. Then after watching the actual movie of course my brother and I ended up renting the game for Super Nintendo and my parents bought the soundtrack on audio cassette. These marketing guys really know their thing. Since I was t...

Before DreamWorks and Pixar slowly entered the animated movie market, Walt Disney Pictures dominated children’s movie nights. “Aladdin” (1992) features old-school hand drawn animation depicting a roguish hero trying to get the princess. It was also one of the first movies to have a major movie star voicing one of the characters. Whereas today you have guys like Tom Hanks, Mike Myers and Billy Chrystal voicing the main characters in animated movies, “Aladdin” was the first time Robin Williams voiced an animated character, something he would repeat in “”Fern Gully,” “Aladdin and the King of Thieves,” and “Robots.” It makes perfect sense since the man is practically half-cartoon. The first time I saw this movie I did not understand all of the cultural references Williams was throwing out since I saw a French dubbed version in theatres, which lost some of the cultural references. It was in Québec and I didn’t speak English yet back then. However by the time I got the VHS tape (remem...

I once read a magazine article in which producer Jerry Bruckheimer said that when it comes to story ideas, movie writers look everywhere. This includes newspapers for real life events, books, investigative articles in magazines, TV show and yes, even video games. However, when he supported a project based on a Disneyland ride, people must have been a little skeptical. Yet low and behold, the first entry in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise surprised everyone by becoming of the biggest hits of the summer of 2003. It resurrected a dead genre, and introduced the world to Johnny Depp’s Academy Award nominated performance as Captain Jack Sparrow, the Keith Richards-like scoundrel of the seas with a taste for rum. This was one of the many big movies I saw in the summer of 2003 after moving back to Canada, following an eight-year stay in South America. Since all movies are released on different dates in South America, this was the first I got to see all big studio movi...