Going alone to a lake to try to decide what to do, he falls asleep on a boat and wakes to find himself in the wild west, in the company of such “tall tale” legends as Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan, John Henry and Calamity Jane. Together, they battle the same villains Daniel is facing in his “real” world, ending with a heroic confrontation in which the boy stands up to Stiles and his henchmen, and rallies his neighbors to fight back against land grabbers who want to destroy their town.
Dang it if Disney's latest for kids doesn't seem like The Wizard of Oz in chaps, sharing that classic's structure but minus its imagination, charm and songs.
Excuse me, is this any lesson for kids? Hey, kids, if you dream hard enough, mythical heroes will step out of your fantasies and help defeat your enemies with fancy gunplay.
If a good children's film is supposed to open the eyes of its young audience, then the somewhat misleadingly titled "Tall Tale: The Unbelievable Adventures of Pecos Bill" is mighty good.
Mickey's minions herein transform three of America's rootin'est, tootin'est frontier superheroes into politically and ecologically corrected pablum-spewing icons for our time.
It's homespun homily time: TALL TALE may look like a rousing adventure story for the whole family, but it's really a vehicle for the kind of tiresome moral aphorisms that only William Bennett could love. . .
