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The Great Mouse Detective

Childhood favorite


This was hands down one of my favorite animated films that I saw when I was a child. I remember going often to a video rental shop with my family and every time we went there and I got to choose the movie, I would choose The Great Mouse Detective. Over and over again. Talk about obsession. It must have been a very bad financial decision for my parents not to buy it for me.


I forgot about it for years but as a teenager for some reason I suddenly remembered that it exists and how much I loved it and started to look for an opportunity to watch it again. (Is this how normal teenagers behave?) Around that time I was reading Detective Conan manga and really liked detective stories so that's probably why I felt a need to find it. Turned out that my friend had the movie so I was able to borrow it (why can't I ever own it??) and watch it again. I remember being very nervous, what if I don't like it anymore. Fortunately it was as good as I remembered and my obsession rekindled.


While writing this I realized I don't know much about the movie in the sense of how it was created, so decided to dig a little deeper. Apparently Disney was struggling a lot while making it, because the film before it, The Black Cauldron was a financial disaster. They even considered closing down the animation department entirely, but gave it one last shot. And luckily The Great Mouse Detective proved to be successful enough to save the studio.





Spoiler alert! The Great Mouse Detective is based on Sherlock Holmes, starring a mouse. Haha, what a surprise! But seriously, the gifs and my reviw are going to reveal some things. It's an enjoyable adventure movie with likable characters, fun action and great voice acting performances both in english and finnish. It's a kid's movie but the dialogue is delightfully over the top. The music is also good, enhancing the movie’s overall mood. I just love the main theme, it's exciting and memorable. The movie makes great use of the London setting, and the animation takes full advantage of that as well. The mice live parallel to their human counterparts, like Basil living in the Sherlock Holmes’s home and the mouse queen lives within the walls of Buckingham palace. The filmmakers are straight-up brilliant with implied violence. The general pace is quick, yet the animation is smooth.

I've learned to appreciate walk cycles in animation, and they drew two. O_o

I love it how he cares but pretends not to, and how in the end they became friends.

The interactions between Basil and Dawson are great, with Basil being very driven but easily distracted by his ambitions and thoughts, while Dawson is much better at dealing with people. Olivia serves as a good emotional center for the movie. The villain is great. He seems to be often mentioned as one of the people's favorite Disney villains.

He’s evil and he loves it!


The animation is great all-round. There is an incredible chase through the London skies that ends in a fight to the death on the face of Big Ben. That final fight between Ratigan and Basil is actually kind of brutal. You could easily add blood and make this a PG-13. The inside of Big Ben was made with 3D layers that were hand drawn on. Apparently, it's Disney's second use of 3D in a movie, The Black Cauldron being the first.

Rage moment of Ratigan. Yes Mona, unfortunately in this story if you are a rat you are evil.

The gasp moment of my childhood:


If you haven't seen the film, I hope you did not get too many spoilers - I did warn you in the beginning! In my opinion it's amazing option to see when you feel like watching some animated film with detective theme, London aesthetics and adventure.

 I definitely feel like watching it again, as always. xD

















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