Walt Before Mickey

I am a pretty big Disney fan and as such, I know much about the life of Walt Disney. I really loved "Saving Mr. Banks" and when I learned about "Walt Before Mickey" from Netflix, I couldn't pass up seeing it. I figured it wouldn't be very special, seeing as how I didn't hear about it in the two years since its release. The true-life story of Walt Disney is a very American one and very inspirational but most rags-to-riches stories, be them fiction or non-fiction, do not leave out the riches and focus solely on the rags. You must have a nice balance between the failures showcased in the story and the successes. Otherwise, the movie is a downer and that is the biggest flaw of "Walt Before Mickey". The show portrayed many of the failures in Walt Disney's life during the 1920's but did not show the success in the 30's that Mickey garnished for Walt. There were other flaws with the movie that I attribute to its independent production.

I find it ironic that Walt Disney had rough times during the "Roaring 20's" but during the Great Depression, he became internationally known. He may have missed the boat getting into the New York cartoon business but by deciding to go to California for a fresh start, "Tinseltown" gave Walt the ability to compete and eventually win. The moment I heard Friz Freleng's name in the film, I knew he was the Looney Tunes guy. "Walt Before Mickey" seems to hint that Freleng is the voice of these classic Warner Brothers cartoon characters but that isn't true. Freleng was a major inspiration for Yosemite Sam though. This movie advertises the power of the collaborative spirit. Part of the reason why "Laugh-O-Grams" and the Alice cartoons got attention was that Walt and his team members contributed to the entire process of making a cartoon. The studio continues this mentality today and Pixar adapted the same philosophy. Speaking of Pixar, Charles Muntz from "Up" is named after Charles Mintz. Also, Walt Disney understood something that some companies even today still don't grasp: the art is better than the money. Today, you have some movies that exist only to make money because the quality is below the bar set by other films released by the same studio or the stories are far from strong. It was nice to see these values of Walt depicted. This movie could have been better if the last 30 minutes depicted Walt's success after the creation of Mickey Mouse, concluding with Walt pitching his idea for "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". Instead, we spent the majority of the movie feeling sorry for the man despite knowing that things get a lot better for him in the end. Besides the problems with the narrative, there were also flaws with the sound and special effects. These minor blemishes could have forgivable if not for the narrative. The depiction of hitting rock bottom is quite good but there was no genuinely happy ending shown to balance that out. As a fun fact, you might wonder why "Steamboat Willie" isn't shown as the debut of Mickey. While "Steamboat Willie" did make Mickey a sensation due to the first use of synchronized sound in a cartoon, "Plane Crazy" was Mickey's first cartoon (even though it wasn't distributed widely until after "Steamboat Willie"). You might think that after the creation of Mickey Mouse that it was smooth sailing for Walt Disney but "Snow White", WWII and being ahead of his time created additional difficulties later in his career. "Walt Before Mickey" is focused on this artist making a name for himself, the greatest challenge of all.

Thomas Ian Nicholas does look like a young Walt Disney and he gave a decent performance. Jon Heder on the other hand had some scenes in which he struggled I think. As a big Disney fan, I know that Walt was taller than Roy so that is another reason why the casting of Jon Heder bothered me. It was cool to see Jodie Sweetin in this film however. The plot problems made "Walt Before Mickey" difficult to fully enjoy. The reason I was able to tolerate this film is because I have known this story since boyhood and was happy to see it portrayed in live action.

3 Stars out of 5