It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This movie is a rather low point in the history of Disney studios. The story revolves around a king (who looks like the Devil) who aspires to be the lord of all things, needing to get a cursed cauldron that has been hidden because of his potential evil power. And the only one who can possibly tell him where the cauldron is hidden is Taran, who has in his guard a sow with divinatory powers. Summarized, thus, its not difficult to understand the illogical confusion of this script, nor the terrible way the characters were conceived. The animations are also not very good, with a heavy, strong trace, low light and dark colors. Disney has always used us to exquisitely crafted, visually elegant and bright films. What happened here? Wasn't the theme of the film dark enough? We also have the problem of music. This film, against the habit of this renowned studio, has virtually no soundtrack. To conclude, I leave here a parental warning: this film, although it was intended for young people, is not suitable for impressionable children. At least that's my opinion. Some scenes are strong, sometimes impressive and scary.

Seeing The Black Cauldron again in my 30's, and on DVD (albeit a blu-ray, or in full 70MM, would have been preferred), is a different experience than seeing it when I was 13 or 14 or whenever it was the movie first hit VHS (Disney didn't put it out when I was little, otherwise I would've seen it then). I recognize more references now - the little dog voiced by John Byner is clearly, whether it was from the book(s) or not, an homage/rip-off of Gollum (like the cuter/fluffier/Happy Meal version), and the feeling of Lord of the Rings permeates a lot here. So does the Dark Crystal. Perhaps a lot of fantasy stories feed from the same trough as Tolkien, or it goes back further (from what I've read these books are inspired by Welsh folktales or something like that), and so familiarity is inevitable. Watching it now though, as opposed to when I had less discerning taste, I wish this had a stronger story and was not cut off at the knees as an 80 minute tale (with credits).Maybe Katzenberg was right when he literally took the reels of film, which was unheard of at the time for an animated feature at Disney, and cut into it to remove however many minutes (from what I read it was between 10 and 15 minutes, as though this would make the film more palatable for audiences, though allegedly some of the cuts were to reduce it from a PG-13 or, as one might want to believe the "street cred" of this, an R). What I have is what's before me, and The Black Cauldron is a style over substance piece of fantasy cinema. It's fitting that it's the first (and since, the last) time since Sleeping Beauty that was released on 70MM, the prestige film format, since it is a spectacle to behold and full of the kind of widescreen dark sorcery that a full widescreen gives a story like that or this.It's interesting for me to see the star rating I give this and then for Sleeping Beauty as they're almost the same, but it's about expectations: SB has one of the highest pedigrees in all of Disney, so to see it and be a little let down is where that comes from. With Black Cauldron, this is one of the most ambitious films of the 1980's, animated or otherwise. The filmmakers here (the directors previously had a small success with The Fox and the Hound, the last of the "9 Old Men" animated films at Disney) are shooting for something grander and more serious-minded, at least in some spirit, than their other films; it's the first time that there are no songs to be heard (though one was animated it was cut before release); there's animation of skeletons rising from the dead, the "Cauldron Borne", that likely inspired scenes in Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness. It aims to have the scope of its spiritual influence of Lord of the Rings in its layouts and some of its character designs.But, at the end of the day, it's still a Walt Disney animated film, and it is in an uneasy area. Reading the history of how this got made is fascinating in that the connections to its production extend to Ralph Bakshi (who turned it down) and Don Bluth who was at Disney through some of its development but left the company before it really ramped up as its 25th production. By the time Black Cauldron hit theaters in the summer of 1985, it was three years after Bluth made his breakthrough with Secret of NIMH, which is a "family" film but dark as hell and maintains its tone. The animators and story people and producers of Black Cauldron can't keep a consistent tone, and that's a tricky thing to manage. Hell, Disney just barely was able to maintain it on a razor's edge with Snow White, and here the problem is that the main characters (the young man on his quest, the princess of wherever who joins up with him midway through) are really dull and not given much personality.So mostly what you're left with are some charming animated scenes, but sparingly (the little fairy characters or whoever they are are nice to see, but are a little familiar too), and then a lot of (for kids) dark stuff involving the Horn King (voiced brilliantly by John Hurt) and a character like the talking dog. Its plot is so thin, and I'm not sure if this is due to the many years of it being in production, that it was in a sort of odd slump of the end of that age of Disney animation of those left from those later days of Disney, and right as the new group would come in (I saw Don Hahn in the credits as production manager, and he'd go on to be involved/produce/direct the 90s animated films). And yet, and it's a big yet, I love the LOOK of this film (with a couple of small reservations, i.e. some character animation seeming to be too pencil-drawn like it's still Sword in the Stone, but whatever).This has a ridiculous budget, a lot of imagination in its design, and the money seems to be mostly up there on the screen. The ambition to translate an (sort of, maybe not) unique world from those books to screen is commendable, and near the end the filmmakers do try to make some emotional stakes matter with one character. The Black Cauldron is a miss, but it's a wonderful miss, and I'm glad it got finished in some form, despite its script issues and hit or miss voicework.

The Black Cauldron will never go down as a classic in Disney's history. It was a complete commercial failure upon first release and it's somewhat easy to understand why - no musical numbers (just an underscore), no fairy tale romance, steps on the dark side an awful lot etc. Negatives: The protagonist is very irritating, the voice work for Taran, Eilonwey and Gurgi is grating and distracting. There's a few animation inconsistencies and the story-line does feel a little scattered and unfocused at times. Examples of this is when they encounter the witches and the fairies. The jump scares are quite overwhelming too - it makes any viewer anxious of what's going to happen next. Positivies: The villain is seriously one of Disney's best. The Horned King is haunting, mesmerizing, powerful and terrifying all at once. He's very impressive and I would class him in my top 10 Disney villains. The animation, though inconsistent, is very beautifully drawn at times and detailed (the design of the castle). I also love the scene where the Horned King summons the dead and they march together. It's very haunting to watch but also chilling in a satisfying way.Yes, The Black Cauldron is certainly not for everyone. And it's definitely not geared towards children. But none the less I enjoy it and it's one which I will considering re-watching soon.

A notorious relic from Disney's back catalog that was censored and shunned internally for years due to its "distressing" content. In a modern light, it's tough to see what all the fuss was about. A few marching skeletons? A bit of swordplay? It all seems so quaint now, with the benefit of hindsight on our side. Not that the film should be mentioned in the same breath as the studio's calling cards, of course. It's short, shallow and more than a little murky, with a distinct lack of Disney charm, but it still has a lot going for it. The animation, for instance, is superb - a great blend of photo-reference and vivid exaggeration that looks and feels like a Don Bluth classic (though Bluth himself, having departed six years prior, was uninvolved with the production). It also enjoys a much more loyal fantasy tone than many of Disney's efforts, sharing many themes (and maybe a few characters) with the then-neglected Lord of the Rings trilogy. Fascinating for many reasons, most of which occur behind the scenes, it's too narrow-sighted and streamlined to be taken all that seriously.