Directed by Koha Le
Starring Thomas Ian Nichols, Jon Heder, and Armando Gutierrez
It's honestly very surprising that a proper film about the life of Walt Disney hasn't been made yet. I can see part of the challenge in it though. Disney had a long, illustrious life and career, and it could be difficult for a script to find its focus. A screenwriter could arguably take one period of Disney's history and script a film out of it. Saving Mr. Banks did that to much success. Walt Before Mickey, not so much.
Now Walt Before Mickey does focus on one period of the man's life, but perhaps too big a period. Based on the book of the same name by Timothy S. Susanin, the film focuses on the first ten years of his career, before he created Mickey Mouse. Now not every average joe would know this, but Walt suffered a lot of setbacks before the mouse was made. If you didn't know, this film will definitely hammer that fact into your head.
We see every one of those setbacks, from his losing of Oswald The Lucky Rabbit, to being evicted out of his office and apartment. It's just all very depressing. Imagine, a film about Walt Disney being depressing. There's a lot of telling and not enough showing, and with the over-abundance of narration I mean that literally. There are some sweet moments in the film, but on a whole the pacing and the tone of the film is just off.
There is this strange subplot in the film, about Walt befriending a mouse he finds on the street (Yeah I know. So subtle.) that was obviously crafted by the filmmakers, that just comes off as a lame attempt to give some bit of structure to the script.
Not to attack the filmmakers themselves, but the whole film has a very cheap feel to it. Yes, I know it's an independent film, but everything is almost at amateur level. The film is just too weak to carry the rich source material its trying to adapt.
The same can be said for the acting. Honestly no performances stand out over all the rest. All seem to be giving their mediocre quality work. Nichols (Kevin from American Pie in case you couldn't recognize him...) as Disney is tolerable at best. Special criticism is reserved for Jon Heder as Roy Disney, who comes off as just so painfully dumb and wooden in his performance, but hey, this is the guy who gave us Napoleon Dynamite.
With a little more effort and production value, Walt Before Mickey could have been a better film. Instead it comes off as something in between "film students' senior capstone" and "low-budget indie". I'd say if you have any interest in the life and career of Walt Disney, give it a look if you have the time, but don't rush to this. There are plenty of better ways to learn how it all started before the mouse.
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