Before I talk about the premise, and review the film and experience, I want to give you a short little history about the attractions that were in the "Fantasyland" theater before "Mickey's PhilharMagic" and trust me this is all going to add up.
In 1971 the first attraction that was created for the theater was an audio animatronic show called "The Mickey Mouse Revue" which involved Mickey conducting an orchestra full of Disney characters, as a handful of other Disney characters would appear on the stage above the orchestra pit and sing songs that they sung in the films that they appeared in.
In 1987, after a 3-D attraction that was shown at "Epcot" called "Magic Journey's" got replaced by another 3-D attraction which was Michael Jackson's "Captain EO"; the attraction was moved to the theater in "Fantasyland" at the "Magic Kingdom". Despite that I have never seen, or heard of it until after looking up this information, I might possibly review this extinct 3-D film in the future, but I make no promises.
In 1994 as Disney's animated classic "The Lion King" was making it bigger than Disney has ever dreamed of, Disney decided to release a puppet show based on the movie a month after the film's release (Wow, and I thought Disney's marketing towards "Frozen" was terrible!).
As time went by, Disney decided to make an attraction that pretty much combined the elements from the previous attractions in the theater by making it a 3-D movie with Mickey conducting an orchestra that has Disney characters singing classic Disney songs (Including a musical number from "The Lion King") and thus "Mickey's PhilarMagic" was born! However, despite the attraction being called "Mickey's PhilharMagic", Mickey surprisingly isn't the star, in fact, he's hardly in it; the real star of the film is actually Donald Duck. The reason for that is, Mickey is conducting a magic orchestra with his Sorcerers hat but as Donald unpacks all the instruments on the stage, he finds the hat that Mickey left on the podium and despite Donald being told not to touch the hat, he puts on the hat, starts conducting the magical instruments, and all hell breaks loose.
Before I review the actual film, I just want to tell you real quickly of what I thought about the Queue. Despite that there's nothing shown on a monitor or a Pre-Show before the actual show, the Queue does make you feel that you're going to see an actual live show, despite that you know its going to be a 4-D film since you receive 3-D glasses that are called “Opera Glasses”. From the posters of the previous shows that were performed at the theater; its look and feel of being in a Disney themed Opera house with a gigantic theater stage covered with a huge red theater curtain as we hear the characters getting ready, just really sets up the mood and tone for the stuff that we’re about to witness! I'm not going to act like that this is the first Disney 4-D attraction that makes you feel like you're in a theater about to see an actual live show that's actually shot in 4-D, nor is it doing anything that different compared to other 4-D attractions like "It's Tough To Be A Bug" or "Muppet*Vision 3-D" for example, but neither the less, the atmosphere in the Queue and the theater itself does bring the feeling that you're actually part of this 4-D film.
As for the film itself, it's actually really awesome! First of all, I love that the film is a concert spin on the classic Mickey Mouse cartoon "The Sorcerers Apprentice", which has Donald in the role of the apprentice instead of Mickey, while Mickey takes on the role of the sorcerer, and the spin on the classic cartoon, along with having a few nods to the cartoon itself is very humorous and clever. My favorite nod to the cartoon is the scene that mimics the ending to the cartoon, while also being original at the same time. What I also admire about the concept is instead of just taking place on the stage, the Magic Hat causes Donald to go from one iconic Disney musical sequence after another, as he chases after the hat and meddles during the songs and what sounds like what could be a cluttered and forced mess with pretty much no thought put into it, is actually done perfectly. The transitions to the musical number are both cool and clever; the humor and slapstick that happen to Donald during the numbers had me laughing non-stop; and the songs that were chosen for the film is great and fit the film perfectly. What really amazes me about the film the most is despite that it's all animated with 3-D animation instead of 2-D animation, the 3-D animation surprisingly doesn't look as computer generated as the animation for "The Simpsons Ride" at Universal for example; the Disney characters with the 3-D animation, as well as the 3-D effects themselves does make the characters seem like they're really there reaching out towards you and the amount of detail that the computer animation puts into animating these classic Disney characters while also staying true to their 2-D designs is really impressive and this is years before "The Simpsons Ride". Even the musical numbers themselves despite being animated with computers, with Donald comically meddling during these classic musical numbers, still manage to bring the spirit and feel of the classic musical numbers that we know and love, while having a perfect balance of originality to these scenes with this gorgeous 3-D animation and Donald's laugh out loud interference's.
As for the 4-D effects in the show, despite that I was sitting in the way back row, I still felt like I was part of the show feeling that the characters were coming right at me! Aside from the 3-D effects of the characters on the screen that look like that they're right in front of me, along with that impressive 3-D animation, the 4-D effects in the theater itself are actually really impressive. The show's use of air jets and water being sprayed in our faces are used at the appropriate times and do feel effective; the animatronic that we see of Donald at the end of the show is both cool and a perfect humorous way to end the show; and the screen that shows the movie is so big that the 3-D effects for the big screen not only make you feel that you're watching all this live in a concert hall, but the screen itself after a few musical numbers expands around the theater which really takes away the feel of being in a theater despite that we’re still sitting down (Much like in the Universal 4-D attraction "Terminator 2 3-D: The Battle Across Time"). The only 4-D effect I sadly can't comment on is the effect of making you smell the baked goodies during the "Be Our Guest" number since I sadly don't have a sense of smell (Shocking isn't it, but better lose that scent instead of losing every thing else), and incase if you're wondering how I know this, I did some reading into the history of this attraction and saw one or two reviews; and the sources did in fact mention about the scent effect in the film. I would love to tell you what I thought about the scent effects, but sadly that is something I cannot share. One other thing I should mention before I move on to my overall conclusion of the attraction is when it comes to voice acting not only is the voice acting perfect, but surprisingly when they use archive sound clips from the original films, and they don't sound like they were copied and pasted in to this film; they actually do sound like they are actually part of the movie. Even mixing Tony Anselmo's voice acting for Donald along with archive sound clips from Clarence Nash voicing Donald from the classic cartoons, sounds really convincing. What also makes this film so special is Disney got Jerry Orbach to reprise his role of Lumiere for the "Be Our Guest" number, and aside from the fact that Disney decided to bring back the original actor that voiced this famous comical Disney character, this film is sadly the last time that Jerry Orbach will be voicing character since he would sadly die the following year after the release for this attraction.
For a 4-D attraction that I thought wasn't going to wow me as other Disney 4-D attractions did, (In fact when you really get down to it, the concept almost sounds like an episode for Disney's "House Of Mouse") it was actually great! The premise is fun and creative; the 3-D animation is beautiful; the humor is funny; the film's choices of iconic Disney musical numbers fit the 4-D film perfectly; and the 4-D effects themselves are really convincing and effective. It's a really great 4-D film that is so great that I actually feel bad for those who can't see it in "Disneyland", but trust me when I say that going to Disney World's Magic Kingdom alone for that 4-D attraction is indeed worth the price of admission!
RATING 5/5
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