Strange World is an American computer-animated science-fiction adventure comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. The 61st animated film produced by the studio, it was directed by Don Hall, co-directed by Qui Nguyen and produced by Roy Conli from a screenplay by Nguyen. The film features the voices of Jake Gyllenhall, Dennis Quaid, Jaboukie Young-White, Gabrielle Union and Lucy Liu. This is the first Disney animated film to feature an LGBTQ+ lead, which led to Disney skipping the film in a handful of regions when it was subject to censorship. The film was released on November 23, 2022 to mixed reviews citing the film's plot and its characters.
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Plot
Walt Disney Animation Studios' original action-packed adventure Strange World introduces a legendary family of explorers, the Clades, as they attempt to navigate an uncharted, treacherous land alongside a motley crew that includes a mischievous blob, a three-legged dog and a slew of ravenous creatures.
Strange Qualities
- The worst part is that Disney managed to actually skip the film's theatrical run in a handful of regions (even in most of Africa, the Arab world and China) due to the fact that a subplot regarding Ethan's relationship with his boyfriend Diazo could lead to huge consequences for certain regions to approve the film for release (and that included banning the film entirely), although it was a bit understandable since this was mainly done to avoid what happened with Lightyear and other live-action tentpoles such as Thor: Love and Thunder.
- Even with the subplot around Ethan having a boyfriend, it's only in the film for a few minutes and was only added in as an attempt for Disney to pander towards the LGBTQ community in an awful way since Diazo is a rather pointless character who isn't important to the film's story and instead is only brought up once and that's it.
- On that case, this film got review-bombed similar to how Lightyear faced this fate.
- While Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Avatar: The Way of Water were managed to be released in that region with no problem. Disney entirely skipped Strange World's release in France so they can release the film onto Disney+, a main reason for this was due to their strict guidelines regarding theatrically-released films (even Disney has done this practice before) and their fears of piracy, even for a tentpole animated title being released in-between the releases of two big live-action films.
- The movie has a few flaws regarding how the film is set up:
- While attempting to cash-in on other Disney characters, Splat and Legend are both pointless mascots that get major screentime than the humans. Even a pink Splat appears in the film, but unlike the blue one, this one got less screentime.
- Also, Caspian says when he first saw Splat that he was cute and wants to merchandise the creature. Splat only got plushies and not action figures and other merchandise-heavy items like how Disney merchandises their products.
- Diazo and his crew also get very less screentime despite the fact that the subplot regarding Ethan's relationship with him caused the film to get skipped.
- While attempting to cash-in on other Disney characters, Splat and Legend are both pointless mascots that get major screentime than the humans. Even a pink Splat appears in the film, but unlike the blue one, this one got less screentime.
- The human designs look surprisingly pretty mediocre and somewhat ugly at best, especially for a Disney Animated Canon film.
- The film also was less advertised than The Way of Water and Wakanda Forever, which led to this film flopping at the box office with a downplayed international rollout and lack of advertising for said film instead of the latter two.
- False advertising: On one of the posters for the film, Ethan Clade, Jaeger Clade, Searcher Clade, Splat, and Legend are shown on a cliff about to fall and where they are trying to get back up. In the final film, this doesn't happen.
- Missed opportunities: While this is somewhat of a nitpick, Splat and Legend don't have any voice actors. They could have been voiced by Frank Welker or whoever else was comfortable enough to provide vocal effects for Splat and Legend.
- Average screenplay from Qui Nguyen.
- Jaeger Clade is an extremely unlikeable character, as in the beginning of the film when he and his crew found out about a green plant that can give off energy, he abandons his son and the rest of the crew out of spite and even when he reunites with Searcher, he acts like a massive jerk and rarely ever cares for him in the slightest.
- Similar to Lightyear, due to the movie being average, it can be seen as a cash grab.
- A few of the character's names are quite questionable at best, such as the name of the main protagonist being Searcher and the dog's name being Legend, which are rather strange names for the characters in general and proves how lazy the film's writing is.
- The movie can be seen as boring at times, especially when the scenes are only having two characters on screen.
- Weak comedy, with most of the jokes either falling flat or not being funny in the slightest due to the bad writing, such as most of Splat's humor being forced and unfunny slap-stick comedy that's been overused in many other kids films.
Familiar Qualities
- The film's action scenes are very fun to watch.
- Halfway in the film, Searcher, Jaeger and Ethan closely bond together and play Primal Outpost.
- While the family gets trapped in a room in the ship, Legend tries to get to open the door and stop Callisto from ever failing the mission. He uses his tongue (which is considered gross to open a door in a public vehicle, even though he's a dog) to successfully open it.
- Good direction from Don Hall.
- As usual with all other WDAS films, amazing voice acting, as to be expected from Disney, especially from Jaboukie Young-White and Jake Gyllenhaal.
- The animation is beautiful and a huge step up from Disney films, as to be expected from Disney. There are also some 2D animation used in the movie, such as the beginning and the end credits.
- The end credits are creative and great, thanks to it being in a 2D animation comic style.
- The concept of a family going on an adventure in a strange world is very interesting, especially for Disney's standards, despite being poorly executed.
- There's a handful of funny moments here and there, as to be expected from Disney, including Splat and Legend being listed as "playing" themselves in the end credits.
- The soundtrack by Henry Jackman is great, and fits the film very well.
- While most of the character designs are somewhat mediocre and ugly, a few characters, such as Legend, Splat, Pink Splat.
Reception
Although the film received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics, it received mixed-to-negative reviews from audiences. On Rotten Tomatoes, it got an 72% score, while on Metacritic, it received an "Generally Favorable" critic score of 65, and an user score of 3.7, indicating "Generally Unfavorable".
Trivia
- Jaboukie Young-White (who played Ethan in this film) also played a minor cameo in Ralph Breaks the Internet.
- The film features a cameo of Star from Wish, which was added as foreshadowing for what would be Walt Disney Animation Studios' next animated film.
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