Customer Reviews

The Three Musketeers - Gift Set with Mickey Mouse Plush

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I actually got this from Amazon as a gift and am quite pleased. I'm not a big fan of Disney, Mickey, or old-school cartoons, but i must say i enjoyed this short feature. The characters, story, and songs are integrated quite nicely. And while the animation is not at the very highest level, it is still quite good and a nice little break from all the cgi and anime stuff going on nowadays. The best parts, for me, in the movie may be the french turtle singing to classical music pieces. Quite a few extras on the disc as well, but not quite as fun as the actual movie. Kids should like this overall, but i think there's enough here to where adults can appreciate it too. Btw, this dvd has some 'special' fast play feature that allows it to play the movie and select extras with a touch of a button. I guess it's for people who aren't knowledgable with dvds(?), or for kids i'm not sure. Anyway, i recommend this to animation fans, especially if you're a fan of Mickey and his friends.

First, thanks to amazon.com for sending this along for me to review. I'm normally not the kids animation type but I did enjoy "The Three Musketeers" which ranks up there in regards to direct-to-video Disney movies. I found that it was good for about ages 3 to 10.

Mickey, Donald & Goofy dream of becoming Musketeers serving France. Until then, they work as janitors a job they're particularly ill suited to do. When Pete the Captain of the Musketeers plots to overthrow the French monarchy and put Pete into power. Mickey, Donald and Goofy must suddenly become Musketeers to help Princess Minnie from being taken prisoner and save France. There's a number of songs that use classic pieces as the basis and these are quite fun.

The animation is fluid and more than a cut above most of the TV cartoons we see. While the designs of the characters are simpler, they have much more character than most of the standard Yugi-O good guys and bad guys. "Three Musketeers" really is a throw back to the "Mickey & The Beanstock" style cartoons that Disney made in the 40's. With winning direction and writing, "Three Musketeers" will provide solid family entertainment. The handsome backgrounds look terrific and the extras will keep kids engaged beyond the movie.

I particularly liked "Backstage Disney" with a comical commentary from "the cast" (although it is scene specific)and "The Many Hats of Mickey" which takes a glimpse back through the 20th Century at Mickey Mouse's evolution with clips from cartoons of the past. We also get to see deleted scenes (most of which aren't finished and are simply line drawings to be filled in later by the animators and colored by the colorists). There's also an option to "create" your own opera in an interactive section. It's probably sometime the kids will play with one or two times.

Overall, a very good cartoon for kids up to the tween years, "The Three Musketeers" has a lot of daring sword fights and enough swashbuckling adventure to keep tikes interested. For adults, it's not a bad time and not as mind numbing as most of the material made for kids today.

I also got this as a gift from Amazon. THANKS! I wasn't even going to open it but it was anamorphic widescreen and DTS so I figured I might as well. I was very impressed with Stitch: The Movie as it marked a total reversal of the backwards slide of Disney's straight to video sequels. This release is similar to that in that it is high quality animation and a story that doesn't suck. Keep in mind that this is really for kids so the humor, particularly from Goofy is quite broad. However there are a couple of really funny parts too.

For example, at one point Mickey is chained to the bottom of a dungeon floor that is about to get flooded. Mickey looks at a height chart that pans up to 8 feet at which point there's a sign that reads "You must be this tall to survive this dungeon". Very funny. There's some other jokes I actually laughed out loud at too, which surprised me. They actually inject some personality and pathos to the characters too making it a bit more well rounded.

The movie is only 1 hour long so it doesn't overstay it's welcome. the DVD also contains a couple of deleted scenes, about a 10 minute behind the scenes, the first 5 minutes of the film narrated by Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Pete, and a couple little activities for the kids.

If you like these characters I'm sure you'll like this film. It held my attention and I felt suitably entertained. But it's mostly for children and I'm sure they'll love it.

Once upon a time, Disney was one of the best animation companies ever, putting out stuff like The Little Mermaid and The Lion King and Aladdin. Now, Disney has mainly turned to two things:

1. Sequels that aren't worth seeing
2. Original works that aren't worth seeing

Fortunately, The Three Musketeers doesn't fall into either of these categories. It's an original, funny, cute movie that doesn't run too long to hold a kid's interest. (It's barely over an hour.)

Captain Pete, leader of the musketeers, has a secret plan -- a plan to kidnap Princess Minnie with the "help" of the Beagle Boys, and become king of all France. However, Minnie soon becomes suspicious that something's going on, and demands bodyguards. Captain Pete hires Micky, Donald, and Goofy, three janitors who have long dreamed of being musketeers. He's sure that they will never be able to stop him!

Little does he know....

This movie is definitely better done than most of the stuff Disney's putting out now. Although a few parts are predictable (Mickey and Minnie will fall in love, the musketeers will win, etc.), there are several funny sight gags, plays on words, great songs, and inside jokes (At one point, Pete quotes part of the theme song to the Mickey Mouse Club - my mom had to explain that one to me) that more than make up for that.

Things I Loved:
*The message of teamwork
*The running joke about not being able to understand a thing Donald was saying
*The way Mickey and Donald were wearing their regular clothes under their musketeer suits
*Pete's helpers, the Beagle Boys. They -- especially the smallest one -- were hysterical!!

Anyway, if you want to watch a recent Disney film, this is the one to see.

Growing up with Disney, my husband and I were dissapointed in this video. Instead of taking the classic humor of things like falling, tripping, being knocked on the head with an anvel, this video uses degrading language as it's humor. By this I mean the character's would call each other names like "stupid" and cut down on one another.
We bought this for our 3 year old and didn't think we'd have to review it before he watched it because it's Disney! We ended up having to skip through sections we didn't think age appropriate. We didn't even finish watching the video. I would say the minimum age for this video is 5-6yo.
We will be reviewing all Disney videos before we let our children watch them from now on.

Incredibly enough this is technically Mickey and Donald's first "full-length" feature in this direct to video release. And wow...what a terrific job!

Mickey, Donald, and Goofy star as the Three Musketeers. The plotline is about how Peg-leg Pete is trying to kidnap Princess Minnie and claim the throne for himself, with the help of the Beagle Boys. The Musketeers must come to the rescue!

The most surprising things is the quality of the animation. While not on a par with 30's and 40's classics, it's still better than what Disney did in the 60's and 70's with a depth and perspective that really shines.

The Extras are nice with the actual characters doing the commentary about their roles, and a good making of feature. Kudos to Disney for putting out great stuff like this.

The first thing that surprised me about MICKEY'S THE THREE MUSKETEERS was how amazing the animation was. Most of Disney's direct-to-video features are usually lacking in the art department (no doubt to the fact that making animation for feature films is expensive), but this one is absolutely gorgeous. The backgrounds are painted with inked-watercolors in the style of "Uncle Walt"'s good old days. The animation is as fluid as one of their animated features. If anything, this one should have gone to theaters, as it would definitely (IMO) make a lot more cash than the other features the Mouse House released this year.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. True to its promise, this woefully short (60 minutes with a seven-minute credit scroll is not enough!) "feature" is outrageously funny, action-packed, and not too syrupy either (even the romance between our heroes and their girlfriends is handled in an deliberately silly light), although it DOES manage to pack a heartfelt message about true camaraderie and friendship.

This isn't a faithful retelling of Alexandre Dumas' novel (but then again, this IS Disney we're talking about); however, the best part about this feature is that it clearly addresses it to the audience. Yes, the film has nothing to do with the original, but the actual story is something that could have been imagined by Walt himself. It's also full of action and derring-do: how wonderful it is to see Mickey, Donald, and Goofy cross swords with the nasty Beagle Boys (and their leader, Captain Peg Leg Pete) to save the lovely Princess Minnie! Even better, there's a showstopping, hilariously paced climax at an opera house, which arguably is the highlight of the film. (The tunes are excerpts from "The Pirates of Penzance", meaning that we get to hear a REALLY REALLY fast rendition of the Modern Major General's patter song!)

The best part about this movie, however, is that Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Minnie, Daisy, Pete, and surprisingly, Clarabelle Cow, all get to ACT and play actual roles, and not simply exist just for the sake of being there. Mickey is still his confident, reassuring self, but he is also spunkier. Goofy is, well, Goofy, and even though Donald's role is reduced to that of a big chicken (no offense, Donald), he manages to be his cantankerous self. Probably the most amazing role in the movie is that of Clarabelle. Usually, she is cast as a secondary character, but this time she gets to be evil Pete's lieutenant... until Goofy's goodness touches her "little cow-hide heart". (Her moo, he sings, in a very amusing parody of the "Habanera" from CARMEN, is music to his ears!)

Speaking of which, the songs in the movie are barely a minute to two-minutes in length, but they don't feel forced--and they're all pieces of classical music set to lyrics. Most of these pieces are sung by ze very French Troubadour Turtle--a newcomer to the Disney group--who narrates the story from time to time and appears in unexpected cameo roles. But as mentioned, Goofy and Clarabelle get a very funny duet, and even Pete gets his own "bad guy" song (set to "In the Hall of the Mountain King")! The musical score by Bruce Broughton, incidentally, is terrific, and does an elegant job spoofing the classical motifs throughout. This is no doubt to Broughton's experience in scoring episodes for TINY TOON ADVENTURES and ANIMANIACS.

All in all, this movie is, true to its tagline, "all for fun and fun for all!" While it probably may not match up to the classic Disney films, it certainly is better than a lot of the films the Mouse House has put out recently, and definitely kicks the crap out of their embarrassingly disappointing HOME ON THE RANGE. There are lots to marvel at, laugh along with, and ultimately, cheer, by the time the end credits (cleverly embedded within the pages of a comic book!) roll. If anything, I think this film far exceeds Disney's outrageous output of "cheapquels" to their classic films, which don't really need them.

The DVD presents the feature in a flawless transfer, and the audio mix is even better. The bonus features, unfortunately, are hit and miss. The cast commentary (where Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Pete get a chance to talk together!) is a hoot, but it's only five minutes long. The "behind-the-scenes" documentary is about as close as buffs will get to a feature detailing the production, but its mostly standard and not anything we haven't seen before (although it DOES continue the idea that Mickey and the gang are actors!). The Many Hats of Mickey, however, is the real gem among the features; here we get to see clips of the Mouse's famous features (narrated by Troubadour Turtle!). This far outshines the other features, which are at best, kiddie-fare.

In closing my review, I'd like to say that the Disney Fast Find option is absolutely unnecessary, almost as if to imply that kids are too "dumb" to use their remote control to make their selections. (Fortunately, you can skip to the Main Menu.) If Disney decides to abandon this feature on future DVD releases, fine with me.

Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Minnie Mouse, and Peg Leg Pete together again for the first time in I don't know how long. All I can say is it's about time!! Too many of today's kids do not realize that Mickey, Donald, and friends are more than pre-school posters or a watch face. This is the perfect movie to introduce your child to the characters that made Disney what it is.
The Three Musketeers is a fun romp, but understand - this has absolutely nothing to do with the original story, and, believe it or not, Disney doesn't hide this fact like they usually do. In this new version, the three musketeers (Mickey, Donald, and Goofy) start off as janitors (!?!) who actually hope to become musketeers. Little do they know...
I guess the reason why this movie worked for me is that it held the interest throughout for my 3 year old daughter as well as my 13 year old son - it made them both laugh out loud a number of times. They don't seem to do that with Fairly Oddparents or that teenage robot cartoon, so I guess that's a good thing.
Yes, I recommend this lite Disney movie - why didn't they release this at the movie theaters - and hopefully this is a new beginning for the classic Disney characters.
Now, how about releasing "Song of the South" on DVD?

I have always been unimpressed with Disney's animation movies produced only for the Home Video Market. In many cases they take on classic movies and do a very inferior work in both terms of art as well as story.

The three mousketeers is a very good movie where you have Mickey, Donald and Goofy as three unlikely heroes that become Musketeers by sheer luck. The end up in the middle of a plot to remove their Queen and through a series of action-packed developmentes try to save her from the bad guys.

My kids (ages 5, 3 and 2) love the movie's story, characters (e.g. the coward Donald Duck) and also love the Music numbers within the movie. The quality of both the animation and the story is good and engaging.

The extra features are also quite fun too and my 5 year old loves to watch them and interact with them -- sometimes more than the actual movie. The music videos, the Many hats of Mickey (include Mickey's footage from the 30's and more recent) and the build your own Opera are very fun and engaging.

All in all a solid home video release the kids love to see over and over again.

I was really pleasantly surprised at how wonderful this movie was. Especially refreshing was the classical music . I did not have to say ,"turn that noise down" once during the movie, in fact I was humming along. A really fun score ! I have five kids ages 3-10 and this is their favorite Disney dvd by far. The first time they saw it the music drew in 4 adults who generally have no interest in children's movies. They were laughing as much as the kids. So nice to have a movie that the whole family can enjoy together.