Walt Before Mickey (2015)

I was appalled, cruelly disappointed at how flat this movie was. I've always been an avid Disney fan. As a kid I used to devour Mickey and Donald comics and cartoons on TV. I find his movies magical. How could anyone depict the genius that the man was in such a dreary, drab fashion? There is absolutely no drama in the script or in the direction. The man himself is so terribly ordinary you wonder how such a man could have invented a whole new grammar of films, animation. Surely some of his craft, the humanness, joy of his movies would get reflected in his personality? But what comes across in the movie is a pedestrian character whose romance (I just read up after watching the movie that Walt and his wife were married for 41 years) is so incredibly facile, one dimensional and completely unromantic that I kept waiting for that one sublimely soulful moment that would make me realise what he saw in her - but we get absolutely no insight into their relationship just as there is very little camaraderie between his fellow animators though we are supposed to believe they are like a family. In short I have yet to see a movie which had such an exciting subject and such a dull, uninspired, shoddy treatment.

Fmovies: Walt Disney is one of the biggest enigmas ever bestowed upon cinema. Many know his name, but few know his personal story or his personal struggle to get to be the renowned, billion dollar entity that he is currently seen as today. Because of that, "Walt Before Mickey" is an ideal biopic, telling us the story of Walt Disney well before Mickey Mouse was even a thought in his mind. Presumably, it'd be a film that would not only demystify a man, but an empire, and give us a more intimate glimpse at someone who has been ritualistically accepted the unmatched soul of animated creativity.

"Woulda, coulda, shoulda," is the moral of "Walt Before Mickey," which, other than one strong thematic point it chooses to emphasize quite regularly, is an overwrought and cheesy biopic, brimful of oversimplifications and embellished emotions. Walt Disney is played by Thomas Ian Nicholas of "American Pie" fame, an actor with a lot of attractiveness, but no discernible soul or personality he's willing to etch into the role. The film concerns Walt Disney's humble beginnings as a local farm boy, strictly dictated by his father and misunderstood by his whole family. Ever since his youth, he has dreamt of being a cartoonist, to the point where he has drawn random, animated animals on the walls of his father's barn in order to fulfill his desires for creative expression.

"Walt Before Mickey" focuses on Walt's struggle to prove himself a gifted animator in a money driven world, as well as his fight the restrictive and debilitating copyright laws that allow studios to own the rights of the animators' work without any question. Such fundamental ideas would be instrumental to a great film if Khoa Le's project wasn't more intent on inciting an emotional response than it was one would that would impact its audience on a level they'd remember in the long term.

The problem with "Walt Before Mickey" is it chooses to embellish its subjects in an emotionally manipulative sense, or one that sacrifices their humanity in favor of cheap pathos. As a result, the film suffers from not only being a believable project, but one that has any other intention aside from capitalizing off of the recognizable qualities and the enigma behind Walt Disney's name.

Le and screenwriters Arther L. Bernstein and Armando Gutierrez do capitalize on Walt's intention to be entirely full of integrity and good will, never making him out to be an entirely greedy soul nor one concerned with immediate monetary compensation. In fact, it's quite admirable how Bernstein and Gutierrez take Walt's story and emphasize fundamental elements about an artist staying true to himself and the repeated failures many will have to go through in order to obtain noteworthy, if any, success. Most of this compelling subtext, however, is undercut, by the film's need to emphasize every emotional occurrence in the film in a boisterous and overwrought manner that does nothing for the film as a whole aside from bring down its thematic credibility.

"Walt Before Disney," through its directorial and narrative woodenness that would make contemporary independent Christian cinema seem like believable fare in the modern day, makes soap operas pragmatic in the kind of drama and incredulous circumstances most of them conjure up. It's a film intent on embellishing every emotional circumstance and not thinking twice about constructing a scene that isn't built off o

The acting and script were so bad, I could hardly stand to watch. Even the music was cheesy. They need to remake this movie with way better actors and writers.

Walt Before Mickey fmovies. When I first saw the trailer for this film, I was overjoyed. I love comics, animation and history, so this seemed like a film I would enjoy very much. Today Walt Disney is an icon for animation, his legacy is to inspire animators and cartoon lovers (I'm not speaking of today's Disney Corporate, though...).

First red flag came to me when I saw the movie title in Netflix. But I thought oh well, at least I don't have to pay separately for my movie ticket or anything and that's cool. I've found many good & recent movies in Netflix, so I didn't quite expect what I was down for.

I nearly shot my cola out through my nose when I saw the first credits. They looked like someone had JUST found out the "Scetch" filter in Photoshop. I quickly started to feel like I was watching a bad biography from the nineties. But again, I assured myself, that many great movies have pulled it together with a small budget.

But I was about to learn a hard lesson here. Acting? Mediocre. Script? Horrible. Music? Constant piano playing that makes you want to pull your hair out one by one. Story flow? Like many car crashed put together. The ending? "Ohhhh man. Did I just waste two hours on THIS?" The only even mildly interesting stuff happens in the first 30 minutes of the film and after that it's just a pain to watch.

I'm truly sorry for the actors, the director and the screen writer. I don't know who hurt you, but please don't ever do another movie together again.

I actually had to stop watching half way through because the film was so painful to watch. I think my biggest mistake was watching "Saving Mr Banks" the night before watching this film. Walt Before Micky certainly tried to recapture the magic so easily conveyed in Saving Me Banks yet failed miserably. Not only were the portrayals of these real people wildly inaccurate, the acting was completely wooden. Everything about the script, direction and acting screamed inexperience and was reminiscent of a school production. I am very disappointed as this could have been a charming film in much the same way Saving Mr Banks made the history of Disney come alive, alas this time around it failed miserably; hopefully one day a remake will do this story justice!

This is my very first IMDb review. I was compelled to write, as this film is simply THAT bad.

This is a cheesy, cheap, made-for-TV style travesty with all the depth of a teaspoon. The script is weak, the dialogue stilted and cringe-worthy, and the acting is quite simply pitiful. But the worst thing about this film is the pathetically awful directing. A glance at Khoa Le's bio tells you everything you need to know. A director with absolutely no skill or experience who's greatest talent seems to be talking himself up.

Walt Disney, the man himself, is a subject that is ripe for the picking - compelling, universally appealing, easily marketable. No one but the most dyed-in-the-wool deluded Disney fanatic could believe this version of his story is all there is to tell. This paltry product barely even begins to pick off the obvious scabs of the man's early life. Any other half-witted music video producer masquerading as a feature film director could have done so much more with this material and cast.

The most intriguing and surprising thing about this, is that it got past the Disney legal team.