"Here's an unusual expedition: artists, musicians and writers setting out for a trip through Latin America to find new personalities, music and dances for their cartoon films. So, adios, Hollywood, and saludos, amigos." -Narrator
Initial thoughts before viewing: Have you heard of this one? Yeah, neither had I. With a run time of 42 minutes, it's the shortest Disney animated feature, and I ended up watching it twice to try and absorb all the new material.
This is the first film of six in what's considered Disney's Wartime Era, also know as the Package Film Era. This is during WWII when traditional feature length animated production stopped and Disney instead produced much shorter "package" features.
Saludos Amigos is made up for 4 different segments of animation, with live-action footage interspersed that tells the story of the Disney animators as they visit South America. If you've never seen Saludos Amigos or need a refresher, here is a link to the movie's Disney Wiki page where you can read the entire plot summary.
Highlight:
Aquarela do Brasil segment
Of the 4 segments in the movie, this last one is hands down the most elaborate and impressive. It features Donald Duck going through a very Fantasia-like water color sequence in Brasil where he meets parrot José Carioca for the first time. José takes Donald all around Rio where they end the night dancing the samba. It's a jamming sequence with classic, super catchy music. I found myself bopping along while watching. I'd highly recommend watching this movie for this sequence alone! You can see a version of this on YouTube here if you're curious, but it's worth a look on Disney+ for much better video quality.
Random thought I had while watching:
Kuzco, is that you?
The Lake Titicaca segment features Donald Duck visiting the famous lake and its surrounding village in Peru, where he interacts with a llama! ❤️
There's even a scene set on a precarious bridge just like in The Emperor's New Groove. Can you tell which screenshot below is from which movie?
Disliked: The second segment about cartoon airplane named Pedro living in Chile was a little blah. It reminded me a lot of Planes, which I think is enough said.
Closing Thoughts:
I think these Wartime Era features are going to be hard to rate.
Sauldos Amigos is not a bad movie. Quite the opposite, I found it very charming! I'd watch that last Brasil sequence again and again. My problem is that it's difficult to compare against the other features that have one cohesive story and subject matter. I think that's why a movie like Saludos Amigos gets lost in the Disney vault. If I didn't have Disney+, I doubt I'd ever have watched it, which is a shame because it is an endearing, interesting little feature.
My Rating: 5/10
My Rating Scale/System:
10 - Masterpiece / Award Worthy 🤩
9 - Almost perfect / Exceptional 🥰
8 - Great / Well-crafted 😁
7 - Good / Noteworthy 😊
6 - Above average / Memorable 🙂
5 - Solidly average 😐
4 - Mixed feelings / Mediocre 😕
3 - Uninteresting / Struggle bus 🥱
2 - Barely watchable 😡
1 - Failure / Why is this a thing? 💩
