Disney has a history of making an impressive selection of movies that appeal to the masses, but it’s perhaps not as well-known for its more miss than hit content. It isn’t necessarily that their more recent releases have been bad either; it’s just that some of their earlier works are even better. It’d be quite challenging and lengthy to rank each and every movie made under Disney! With their wide spectrum of films, from live-action movies and Marvel Cinematic films to animated films, it seems like they own pretty much everything. With that being said, here is a list of their most bizarre animated films, ranked in ascending order –
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Atlantis: The Lost Empire was a movie that received its fair share of criticism upon its initial release, but over time the tides have changed. Nowadays, most filmgoers regard it as a cult classic and appreciate its many story elements and imaginative visuals. Despite this more favourable reception, however, in the battle between this Disney animated movie and Shrek which debuted around the same time, Atlantis: The Lost Empire lost out at the box office and so ended up having somewhat of a lacklustre reputation in comparison.
Planes: Fire And Rescue
Planes’ first outing did not impress anyone. It was just a little too incoherent and it lacked both a clear message and one impressive enough to warrant another go-round. Still, its small but loyal fan base is glad that Disney took this sequel project over the finish line in 2014 despite some biting criticism from the critics. All in all, these Planes: Fire and Rescue got panned for not measuring up to the vitality and originality of those other Planes flicks that audiences have come to expect from Disney.
Doug
Doug was created in 1991 by Jim Jinkins and was originally just a short film project solely financed and produced by Jinkins. Because Nickelodeon had not yet been founded, it was pitched to Disney but they weren’t interested at the time. Nick eventually saw an unfinished example of Doug on DVD and decided to take a look at the series which led to them picking it up. But they cancelled it after only four seasons. The reason for this is that the executives wanted more shows like Ren and Stimpy. Thus, the showrunners opted not to renew Doug for Season 5, which went straight-to-video instead of airing on TV. Afterwards, Disney greenlit a movie based on Doug as they were interested enough in making one, though it apparently lacked much of the heart from the TV series.
Planes
Planes is a spinoff from Cars. Most of the time, it focuses on talking planes. Truthfully, there isn’t much to the plot beyond that. The movie’s concept and story was originally created as an idea for a direct to DVD release until the decision was made to give it a theatrical release. It seems like most of its 90+ minute runtime is committed to selling children on its toy line of colourful planes more than trying to tell a compelling story.
The Jungle Book 2
The Jungle Book 2 is a theatrical animated film that was arguably a better choice for video than the original The Jungle Book. This time, it was released theatrically worldwide, which is just odd considering the original movie came out so long before. However, this sequel has striking similarities to its predecessor in both plot and animation style. Thus, it all feels like a copy-and-paste job that fails to recapture any of the magic of the original.
