Review – Walt & El Grupo

Apparently all the slick production values Disney Studios can bring to bear don’t make the home movies from your grandparents’ vacation any more interesting. The subject at hand is a tour of South America arranged by the government for Walt Disney and some of his artists in 1941. Their mission was to build goodwill and help reduce the growing Nazi influence in the southern half of the Western Hemisphere. The “countering the Nazis” angle was interesting, but it’s a teeny tiny part of a long, tedious travelogue. Further, it gets a little disingenuous when it covers topics such as the animators’ strike going on at the studio at the time. Overall this is a pretty picture. It just isn’t particularly entertaining. Some of the online notes indicate that the DVD version comes with some extras, including at least one of the animations produced as a result of the trip. However, I instant-viewed it and thus didn’t get the additional stuff. Mildly amusing