The Magic Voyage (1992/1993) - An Annoying Movie That is Too Strange for its Own Good

 

So, I originally wanted to to a review of Wonder Park last week to coincide with its four year anniversary and to see if my original opinions still held up. Unfortunately, that plan didn't quite go as anticipated, so I'm going to take a look at another movie in my collection. You never know what you'll find when you go looking for anything to add to your collections. Speaking as someone who is collection a bunch of things, if you go into second-hand shops or search online for just anything, you'll find some interesting things you never would have thought about. For example, who would ever look for a movie like The Magic Voyage? The Magic Voyage is a German animated film from 1992 that tells a fantastical version of Columbus' journey to America, and I mean fantastical in more than just, "Columbus discovered America", I mean full on talking animals and fairies. With all that said, is this movie worth checking out?

Disclosure, for this review I watched the 1993 English dub by Hemdale Film Corporation. There is, allegedly another dub out there by Atlas Film, but it's apparently rare and probably not all that better.

The story follow Christopher Columbus, as he sails across the Atlantic ocean to find passage to East Asia, along the way he encounters many fantastical creatures in a... wait... no sorry I was describing the story of this movie if it was done right. See, in this movie Columbus doesn't believe the Earth is round, he is told this by a woodworm named Pico, and before they sail off to sea, Pico falls in love with a Moon Sprite named Mairlyn, well, this dub calls her a Moon Sprite, other sources say Firefly, so I don't know, call her a Johnny for all I care. Anyway, Marilyn gets kidnapped by this Swarm Lord and taken back to their kingdom in the west, which just so happens to be where America is. So, forgetting that this movie factually inaccurate, people knew the Earth was round in the fifteenth century, the addition of Pico and Marilyn and the Swarm Lord makes me connect this movie to The Tom and Jerry movie from around the same time, where they just, for whatever reason felt the need to add in unnecessary stuff when the basic bones they have should have been enough to tell a good story.

I mean, no, a movie about Columbus would still be historically inaccurate, but adding in Pico and Marilyn and a romance between those two is exactly like adding an orphaned girl looking for her father while escaping her greedy abusive aunt to a movie about Tom and Jerry. Like, you have a good base already, you don't need to add more to it, when you do this, all you have is a stick on a baseball field. You have a decent enough base for a movie, you don't need this extra stuff. Though it also doesn't help that the movie has a lot of padding, plenty of scenes that just exist to pad out the story, and serve no purpose to the plot, like some seagulls fighting over a fish, or Pico making faces in some crystals.

However, the story is not the worst thing about this movie. That honour goes directly to the dubbing. I have to ask, were dub jobs always of a mediocre or bad quality before the late 90s and early 2000s? because this dubbing makes the Vampire Hunter D dubbing look like the English Dub of Whisper of the Heart. Characters talk when their mouths are closed, they make a whole lot of random noises that don't even sound like they're being emoted, and there is literally a scene where Christopher Columbus is supposed to be sea-sick and maybe is meant to throw up over the side of the ship? I say that because the acting is so poor that it does not come off as such at all. The real shame here is that they got some genuine talent for this dubbing, Dom Deluise, Irene Cara, Corey Feldman, they even got Mickey Rooney to narrate the movie, but none of them give a good performance, except for maybe Mickey Rooney. Easily, this is the worst part of this movie.

Then again, the performances are not the only problem with the audio, because again, like with Felix the Cat, there are very few moments of silence throughout the entire damn movie. There are some moments where the background music takes center stage, but throughout most of the movie characters have to be making noises, objects have to be making noises, characters have to be singing. Oh goodness, the musical numbers in this movie are dreadful. They are not the worst songs I've heard in a movie, but they are up there. None of these actors can sing in this movie, and I know that is ironic considering Corey Feldman went on to have a musical career, most notably the infamous album Angelic 2 The Core, but with the voice he's using and the character he's playing, it just sounds awful. The same to be said for Dom DeLuise. This is easily one of the worst movies when it comes to the audio.

The animation of this movie is... strange. The character designs are pretty cartoony, but not too bad, I can see them being somewhat appealing. Character movements look cartoony, and again the lip sync is a very noticeable problem, but as a whole the animation isn't that bad. There are times when it just looks like the animation cels are just being dragged across the camera lens, and there are a few errors here and there, but after Silver Circle, 1990s 2D hand-drawn animation, even of a mediocre quality, is very welcome. I can't say this is quality animation, but it is enough for a passing grade, sadly one passing grade does not make a good report card.

This movie was a pain to sit through, the awful dubbing and absolutely bizarre story are just the tip of the iceberg for the problems with this movie. Poor performances from some quality actors, lots of unnecessary padding, god-awful music and singing. Only the animation is of any quality, and again it's mediocre, especially compared to other movies from the same time period. Forget that this movie is historically inaccurate, if the movie is entertaining enough I can let that slide. The Greatest Showman, Bohemian Rhapsody, Anastasia, Tombstone, these movies have plenty of inaccuracies and people still love them. The problem is, this movie offers very little else, to the point where I would very much rather watch a movie about the real Christopher Columbus, I'd say this movie is as bad as the Felix the Cat movie, and since there is not the caveat that few people actually care about the subject of this movie, I can give this movie the rating I should have given Felix the Cat, just skip this movie.