Must See Movie Monday - The Great Mouse Detective

Film: The Great Mouse Detective
Released: 1986
Directors: Ron Clements, Burny Mattinson, David Michener, John Musker
Starring The Voices of: Barrie Ingham, Val Bettin, Vincent Price, Susanne Pallatschek
Short Summary: Basil of Baker Street and Dr. Dawson, the mouse versions of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, investigate the case of a toy maker kidnapped by his arch-enemy Professor Ratigan.

Why It's A Must See Movie

Yes, I have picked another kid's movie. Why? Because they are the only movies I can stay awake through these last couple of weeks. Haha! I decided to go with a childhood favorite of mine The Great Mouse Detective this week. It was released in the year of my birth and my birthday is on Wednesday, so I thought it would be a great time to chat about this little movie.

I think as far as Disney movies go The Great Mouse Detective is one of their films that gets thrown in the underrated pile. In fact I feel like a lot of Disney films that are more in the adventure story genre are underrated. They're all great but they don't tend to have the popular songs or the Disney Princesses so maybe that is why. However, what I enjoy most about The Great Mouse Detective is that it is an adventure. It has a great deal of fast paced action and a little bit of comedy. I love the animation and how strong they made the facial expressions of the characters.

I get a huge kick out this movie just for the fact that it is a mouse version of Sherlock Holmes. When I was a kid I don't think I full understood how great that element was. As an adult I can fully appreciate it. Especially after reading a few of the Arthur Conan Doyle's novels. The Great Mouse Detective is full of a ton of little references to the Sherlock Holmes novels and films. For example the mouse character Basil is named after Basil Rathbone who played Sherlock in fourteen films. There are several other references particularly in the parallels between the original Sherlock characters and the mouse versions of the characters. I think that is brilliant. It's great fun to watch it as an adult a try to catch all these references. It's great fun to watch as a kid for the animated characters and action. In a nut shell The Great Mouse Detective is the fully family film package, because everyone can enjoy it. This is also another situation where as I was looking up things online about this movie I discovered that it is based on a book. Well, I am just going to have to hunt down that book then.