Movie Review - The Magic Voyage

[Alice]

Note: Sorry for the delay. A lot of things have happened, all of which prevented me from writing this review earlier. I promise that after this review, there will be a somewhat steady schedule again! Once again, I am reviewing a movie that features the voice of the late Dom DeLuise in a prominent role. I have chosen not to discard this review, but I do not intend to besmirch DeLuise in any way, shape or form. After this review I'm going to leave Dom DeLuise movies alone, at least for a good while.)


Click here for the trailer!

Question. What were the names of the three ships used in the first voyage of Christopher Columbus? If you answered Niña, Pinta and Santa María, then congratulations! You remembered a fact you probably learned in first grade, like me. That's right; in the first grade I was told of Christopher Columbus, or at least just a few scant details, and among what I learned were the name of the ships.

In this German animated movie, The Magic Voyage (1992; dubbed in English and released in North America in 1994), the names of the ships are intact, but pretty much everything else about Christopher Columbus is wrong. Of course, that really isn't surprising; after all, Disney's Pocahontas and Don Bluth's Anastasia were based on nonfictional people, yet in their respective films they were largely exaggerated and placed in heavily fictional scenarios. In addition, I personally enjoy Pocahontas, so I'm not one to not give an animated musical based on true events a chance. Alas, this movie fails to live up to even my not-so-lofty expectations. It's not quite as bad as Titanic: The Animated Movie, thank goodness, but it's still tasteless and awful in its own right.

That's a shame, because the film's opening titles are just fine. Sure, the title The Magic Voyage is more stock than it is captivating, but the opening titles play over what appear to be watercolor scenery, and the music is fairly pretty. With an opening credits sequence like this, one would hope for a decent animated romp. Alas, this film just doesn't deliver! Damn it!

After the titles, the film's narrator tells us a little bit about the past. The narrator is voiced by Mickey Rooney, and this is really funny because he only speaks for, like, under 30 seconds. Sure, get a well-known actor to read some lines. Always a plus. Anyway, Mickey Narrator states the following:

"A long time ago, people thought the world was flat, and if you sailed uncharted waters, you just might fall over the edge into space. This may sound strange to us now, but in those days, no one knew what lay over the far horizon. What, with pirates and hurricanes and sea monsters to contend with, it was a very dangerous time. But in 1492, there appeared an Italian navigator, a man with a revolutionary idea. He thought that the world was square, and his name was Christopher Columbus."

Back up. He thought that the world was square? That's not what I've been taught in first grade! However, we don't meet up with Columbus yet. Instead, we are greeted with a really annoying seagull, and then we are introduced to one of this film's primary characters, a woodworm named Pico. Pico is voiced by Corey Feldman, but unlike the lovable smartass Corey Feldman from The Goonies we get a Corey Feldman with a constricted vocal chord. It's not particularly pleasant. Pico also happens to look nothing like a woodworm. Here, let's compare.

Here's Pico. He does not look like a woodworm, does he?


This is a woodworm. Pico does not look like this, does he? Also, woodworms are actually the larval stage of certain beetles, so... is Pico doomed to remain a baby for eternity? This movie is confusing me! Whatever; we'll just list Pico between Jiminy Cricket and Sonic the Hedgehog in the list of characters who look nothing like their species.

Pico manages to evade the hungry seagull, and ends up in the personal ship of Christopher Columbus. Now, I'm probably going to be controversial when I say this, but I do honestly believe that the real Christopher Columbus was actually a bastard. He was very greedy, he killed many Native Americans, and he even forced other Native Americans into slavery. How funny is that we now idolize him with Columbus Day, even though he was really a jerkwad? Well, this movie dumbs down the facts. And by dumb down, I mean dumb down. In this movie, Columbus isn't an arguably evil individual, but a blithering moron. That's right, in this movie Christopher Columbus is a damn Ritz brother. And he's voiced by Dom DeLuise. Nothing against Dom, but this particular character is a bumbling oaf.

Christopher Columbus, according to this film, believed that the world is square, but Pico gnaws on the corners of Columbus' square globe and convinces the inept explorer that the world is round. Pico knows this because he "ate a lot of libraries." Okay, this is a really stupid joke, but it actually isn't that far fetched in theory (the belief that the world is round was thought up quite a long time before Columbus' life). Realizing that the world is round, Columbus decides to pay a trip to King Ferdinand (no, not Jacob's delightful character!) and Queen Isabella, and ask them to finance his voyage to travel West to get to the East. He takes Pico with him, and on their way Columbus (DeLuise) and Pico (Feldman) sing a really bad song called "A Fellow Like You." Corey Feldman, your singing voice sucks. No offense, but you have really bad singing pipes. Just letting you know!

Arthur, if he was animated poorly!

At Ferdinand's castle, the evidently dwarf king forces a Moses lookalike to test out a flying contraption. This silly sequence has nothing to do with the film, so we're thankful when it ends. Ferdinand (voiced by Grizzly Adams himself, Dan Haggerty) and his Grima Wormtongue-esque adviser are not kind to Christopher Columbus, but eventually a really ugly and really annoying Isabella (voiced by Samantha Eggar, whom we probably know best as the voice of Hera in Hercules) barges in and immediately develops the hots for Columbus. It is because of her that Ferdinand unwillingly finances the voyage.

While Isabella and Columbus engage in verbal foreplay at dinner, Pico ditches the scene (I don't blame him!) and checks out Ferdinand and Isabella's castle on his own. The woodworm looks up at an illuminated tower and says, "Hey, that looks pretty cool." He climbs up said tower and peers inside to see a fancy chandelier. When he sees this majestic chandelier he says, "Hey, that looks pretty cool." [?] He descends onto the chandelier via a spider web, and he sees crystal ornaments that contains goofy reflections of Pico. After seeing these reflections Pico says, "Hey! These are pretty cool!"

Stop the reel. What the hell is with Pico's fetish for saying, "Hey, that looks pretty cool!" at everything he sees? Sure, he actually said some additional things that I omitted, but that's not the point; he said, "Hey! That looks pretty cool!" three times in under a minute. This redundancy signals a bad script.

Anyway, he's not alone on this chandelier! This fancy chandelier is actually the makeshift prison of a fairy who looks like a fusion of Alice and Tinker Bell, blanketed with a crapload of plastic surgery.

"I'm sorry, I seem to be in the wrong picture. Could you please point me to the direction of A Journey Through Fairyland?"

When Pico first notices this fairy he exclaims, "Oh, my God!" This is an unusual exclamation for a really kid-oriented cartoon character. The fairy's name is Marilyn, and she's voiced by Irene Cara. Irene Cara voiced Snow White in that lame Filmation movie, Happily Ever After (which will be reviewed in the near future. But wait, Dom DeLuise voiced a character in that movie, too! Damn it, Dom, why do you populate movies I really want to review?!). Yeah, this isn't a very good sign, and Irene Cara's performance is admittedly grating. But, believe it or not, she is an Academy Award winning performer, not for acting but for singing. Specifically, she won the Oscar for her song, "Flashdance... What a Feeling." Yep. Random trivia for you.

Marilyn immediately engages in her tale of woe. There's no real buildup at all; she just jumps right into her sad story. She was the princess of some fairy kingdom called Newsprints. Actually, no, I highly doubt it's called Newsprints, but because this DVD has no subtitles I really don't know how it's spelled, so I just say what I hear. She was the princess of the kingdom of Newsprints. As she talks about her happy memories, Marilyn giggles. Seriously, she giggles just thinking about some of her past. Maybe some of her memories also emit laughing gas? Marilyn was a gay and merry princess, until some insect army that forms a singular being named the Swarm Lord (also voiced by Grizzly Adams) decided to rain on her parade. He grabbed her, chuckles something about using the fairy princess' power of light to become some omnipotent being, and flew away with his prisoner. This is weird. I have to say, for a movie focusing on Christopher Columbus, this movie took a sharp turn into Interstate Surreality. We go from Christopher Columbus and a woodworm and jump right into a fairy and some lesser Oogie Boogie. Weird.

"How do you like my new threads, my dear? I got them from Lord Yupa."

Pico and Marilyn pretty much fall in love at this point. Pico tries to fend off some of the Swarm Lord's guards, and he does, but the Swarm Lord arrives (Pico exclaims, "Oh, my God!" again), grabs Marilyn, and flies her across the horizon, towards the west. Pico is pissed. So pissed, in fact, that he collapses in depression, falls asleep, and nearly misses his ride the next morning. He catches up, though, by grabbing a flower and parachuting most of the way to the ships. As he parachutes, Pico makes an anachronistic joke about airlines. Funny, right? Along the way, though, he meets three crude rats who, I swear, look like they're about to sing an uninspired song any minute. Fortunately, they don't. They join in on a song later on, but more on that later.

The rats and Pico board the ships (though Pico requires tricking that seagull into unwillingly assist him), and the woodworm is soon reuinited with Christopher Columbus. However, Columbus' eccentric behavior make his crew uneasy. Plus, the crew are frightened that a woodworm is on the chain of ships, which, honestly, is a good point. Columbus is told of Marilyn, but he seems too stupid to really think about it.

At this point, there are two noticeable details about this film: 1) the main instrument in the film score seems to be, strangely enough, a harmonica along with synthesizers, and 2) for the majority of the time, the characters' mouths do not move with the words they're saying. And I don't mean just bad synchronization, I mean a lot of the time the mouths do not move at all. It's awkward.

One night, in the captain's cabin, Columbus has what appears to be a fever dream that beautifies Isabella (yuck) and demonizes Ferdinand. I'm honest; this dream Columbus has is all kinds of surreal. And considering how strange this movie is, it's really a standout.

It's like if Schoolhouse Rock! became stranger.

The crew becomes so distrustful about the captain that they plan a mutiny. Columbus decides to earn his crew's trust by singing a song! This is the best song in the film, but that's not saying squat. Every crew member on board dances along, including the seagull and Pico, dancing together. What the hell? That'd be no different than Chef Louis and Sebastian suddenly letting bygones be bygones and joining along for a game of Gator Golf.

The song is eventually over, and now Pico has a dream of his own. This dream isn't surreal, though; it's much more boring. He dreams of, guess who, Marilyn, and it's so dull and saccharine that it makes one miss Columbus' acid trip of a dream.

Dream by night, wish by day/Boredom starts this way...

After Pico's dream, we watch the ships sail through a nasty storm. This is actually my favorite scene in the film, because it features some interesting (keyword: interesting. Not great) effects, and no characters on screen. Yeah, the ships are apparently trudging through the storm alone, without being manned at all. How odd!

The next morning, the silhouette of what appears to be land is found. Everyone is overjoyed at first, but the it turns out to be the silhouette of a shipwreck and viking skeletons. The rats are terrified, and they run for a lifeboat. Pico tries to stop them by saying, "If you leave, the crew will mutiny!" Why would a crew mutiny if a bunch of rats scurried away? Well, I guess the crew would think, "Hell, even the rats are fleeing!" I'm trying to analyze a stupid piece of work, so the joke's on me.

At any rate, the crew does rebel. They tie a noose around the pajama-clad Christopher's neck, and he is raised high in the air. He frets so much that he removes his pajama and is now wearing nothing but his boxers [!!!].

... I'm not even going to bother commenting on this. Well, I guess it's natural to take someone as controversial and amoral as Christopher Columbus and turn him into a blithering moron.

The rats make no progress on the lifeboat, and the biggest rat expresses guilt for being mean to Pico. The leader of the gang refuses to return to Pico and company. The rats then notice circling sharks. The thinnest rat shrieks, and the leader asks, "Are those sharks?" [?] Actually, that's not the most confusing part; the most confusing part is the fact that the sharks sound like a mountain lion!

Grizzly Swarm Lord inadvertently rescues Christoper Columbus; he attacks the ship they're on, and they crash on the New World! That's right, Columbus arrives in North America, even though he in fact did not arrive in North America in 1492! Amazing!

In this New World, Marilyn is kept in a Kingdom of the Crystal Skull-esque temple, on top of a hill of honeycombs and gold. The Swarm Lord informs Marilyn that Pico and his friends are dead (which is only partially correct as I'm about to tell you), and the camera cuts to Pico face-first in a puddle of water.

Sorry, Pico, but Pinocchio does it way better.


See?

Pico is revived by a fat, jesting beaver who is not funny in the least. Give him credit, though; his background music sounds a lot like Wilbur Cobb's music from The Ren & Stimpy Show.

So, there actually is a dead member in the party. The leader rat is hinted to be gone. History. Vanished. Can't say I'm sad, but the two remaining rats decide to join Pico and Bob, rescue Marilyn, and defeat the Swarm Lord. And at this point, Christopher Columbus is completely mentally ill. He is not sane at all; he just runs around, shrieks, and prances about as soon as he sees what appears to be gold from afar, at the temple. As they travel through the jungle towards the structure, they reference The Wizard of Oz. They really shouldn't have done that, because now I am kicking myself for watching this piece of swarm droppings instead of watching that cinematic masterpiece! At one point, Pico eats through a tree, looks to the camera and says, "That was gross! I hated that tree! NOT!" [?] Then the fat rat says to Pico, "How nice for you! Where's the GARBAGE?! That's what I'D like to know!" This is one [censored] strange adventure.

As they ascend the temple's steps, Pico exclaims, "Look! Skulls!" Bob the beaver reassures the woodworm by saying, "Don't worry; they only eat humans." [?]

Columbus really shouldn't handle any blunt objects, for the safety of everyone around him.

The opening credits music plays as Marilyn and the Swarm Lord realize that Pico and his friends are still alive. After a few unfunny gags, Pico and his friends arrive in the temple. Bob the beaver and the rats start eating away at the mountain of honeycombs, while Pico makes his way up said mountain, to Marilyn. Columbus does his own thing by climbing up towards the gold (which is actually just Marilyn's light obscured by the swarm in crazed greed (one true fact this movie got right!). Columbus and the Swarm combat each other (more or less), and it ends with 1) the honey comb mountain crumbling because of Bob and the rats, and 2) Columbus falling with a very large, golden idol and inadvertently crushing the Swarm Lord to death. Now the whole temple starts crumbling, and during this the seagull, out of nowhere, flies in, grabs Pico in assistance and exclaims, "Come on, Pico! Let's go!" [] When did Pico and the seagull become friends? When? Was it because of that dumb song? I don't know.

The temple crumbles, and everyone except Pico and the seagull are swept away by the river. Marilyn is drowning, and Pico has one shot at grabbing her from the seagull's bill. Unfortunately, he misses, and they later find Marilyn (and the golden idol). But the fairy is lifeless and pale. Fortunately, before a predictable bummer moment can dwell for too long, the sun rises and rejuvenates the sunny fairy. Pico and Marilyn continue their presumed lifelong love.

On their way back to the ship, they bump into evil-looking Native Americans, but they're ultimately grateful for the death of the Swarm Lord. Columbus is allowed to keep his golden idol... which, whispered by one of the Native Americans, is only plated. To be fair, that's probably the only joke in this film that made me smile.

On their voyage back to Ferdinand and Isabella, everyone on board listens to Columbus, and his musings of the New World. Who knew that it would later be New York City, and be subject of a bad movie called A Troll in Central Park? Cue a forgettable song by Al Jarreau during the end credits.

My brother received this movie as a gift, and at the same time I received We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story as a gift. Pretty awesome presents, huh? Joking aside, this movie is not a present. If anything, The Magic Voyage is a lump of coal. It's not quite as bad as Titanic, but it is still an awful movie. The story is nonsensical and not the good kind of nonsensical, the dull characters aren't memorable, Columbus is an annoying goof, the Swarm Lord is more cardboard than bugs, the songs are uninspired, Marilyn is a jarring ditz, the animation ranges from acceptable yet uninspiring to poor, the mouths hardly move correctly... this is just a bad movie no matter how one looks at it. It amused me to some extent as a child, sad to say, but upon retrospect, this is a doomed voyage.

Oh, well. At least in this film Columbus is moronic and not evil. If only that were the truth.

* out of ****

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