Peter Pan has a special place in the realm of classic animated Disney films: it instils an element of child-like wonder. The 1953 version of James M Barrie's story is colourfully told and keeps on the straight and narrow of the book. Barrie's wondrous focus on child's play is the key to its longevity: children who don't grow up, shadows that run away from their owners, pirates, a fairy, and the magic ability to fly. In short, you can't help wishing the adventure would happen to you. Fuelled by a few memorable songs (the stunner being "You Can Fly") and the strong impression of the pixie fairy Tinkerbell and the goofy Captain Hook, Disney's version of this story neither supplants nor lessens the Broadway version with Mary Martin that was produced for television the same decade. Unlike some classics, Peter Pan never ages along the way. -Doug Thomas, Amazon. com.

Disney's 1967 animated feature The Jungle Book seems even more entertaining now than it did upon first release, with a hall-of-fame vocal performance by Phil Harris as Baloo, the genial bear friend of feral child Mowgli. Loosely based on Rudyard Kipling's original, the film goes its own way as Disney animation will, but the strong characters and smart casting (George Sanders as the villainous tiger, Shere Khan) make it one of the studio's stronger feature-length cartoons. Songs include "The Bare Necessities" and "Trust in Me". -Tom Keogh One of the very best animated films that the Walt Disney Studio has ever released (and the last to be produced by Walt Disney himself), and as downright brilliant as it was on its debut in 1967, The Jungle Book makes a very welcome return to DVD in this excellent 40th anniversary double-disc set. Based loosely on the Rudyard Kipling's book of the same name, the film tells the story of man-cub Mowgli, and the friends he makes in the jungle. And it's these friends who ignite the film, with some of the most memorable characters and songs that Disney has ever put on the screen. Kings of The Jungle Book are the likes of Baloo the Bear, King Louie the villainous Shere Khan the Tiger, while supporting characters such as Colonel Hathi are just as memorable. It's astonishing that it packs so much and so many into its relatively short running time. It's an amazing achievement too that The Jungle Book bristles with such energy and fun, and that it's just as likely to enthral the current generation of youngsters as well as those of us who saw it first time round. And when those songs start playing-from Bare Necessities through to I Wanna Be Like You-it'll take some effort to not start tapping your feet. [+]

One of Disney's less popular animated movies, for absolutely no good reason at all, because it's an excellent story, simply and expertly told. The box blurb rather confusingly compares it to Bambi, but this is a story which has rather more to do with how social conventions can divide friendships than the coming-of-age subtext which underlies the latter. The story is perhaps predictable-a fox cub and a puppy play together as friends, not realising that their places in the scheme of things dictate that they will grow up to become hunter and hunted. Of course, eventually they see the light and it all ends happily, but even so the story promotes the importance of tolerance. The master-stroke, however, is the gradually evolving realisation that the aggressive prejudices which we all stand to inherit from society are nothing more that the products of stupidity and manipulation, and should be treated with the contempt they deserve. Good stuff for kids and adults alike. Trivia buffs might like to know that this is one of the films Tim Burton worked on at Disney, his first job after graduating from college. -Roger Thomas This special 25th Anniversary edition includes the classic 1981 The Fox and the Hound movie in its entirety and an abundance of special features including a Backstage Disney featurette, two interactive hide-and-seek games, sing-along, read-along, art gallery, and two Disney shorts. The fascinating six-and-a-half minute Backstage Disney segment "Passing the Baton" emphasizes the The Fox and the Hound's place as a historical turning point in Disney animation; chronicling the process by which legendary animators Woolie Reitherman, Frank Thomas, and Ollie Johnston, three of "Disney's Nine Old Men" whose names were synonymous with Disney Animation from the Snow White era, began work on The Fox and the Hound characters and their relationships and then encouraged a whole new generation of young Disney animators including Glen Keane, Randy Cartwright, Ron Clements, and John Musker to build upon that foundation, completing the movie's animation and effectively initiating a whole new chapter in Disney animation that would later culminate in movies like Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. The "Passing the Baton" segment also touches upon The Fox and the Hound's underlying messages about friendship, racial prejudice, stereotyping, and bigotry. [+]

More ambitious in scope than any of its other animated films (before or to come), Disney's 1940 Fantasia was a dizzying, magical and highly enjoyable marriage of classical music and animated images. Fantasia 2000, originally made for the IMAX large-screen format, features some breathtaking animation and storytelling, and in a few spots soars to wonderful high points, but it still more often than not has the feel of walking in its predecessor's footsteps as opposed to creating its own path. A family of whales swimming and soaring to Respighi's The Pines of Rome is magical to watch, but ends all too soon; a forest sprite's dance of life, death and rebirth to Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring too clearly echoes the original Fantasia's Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria sequence. But when it's on target, Fantasia 2000 is glorious enough to make you giddy. Hans Christian Andersen's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" is a perfect narrative set to Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2, and Donald Duck's guest appearance as the assistant to Noah (of the Ark fame) set to Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance marches is a welcome companion piece (though not an equal) to The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the one original Fantasia piece included here. The high point of Fantasia 2000, though, is a fantastic day-in-the-life sequence of 1930s New York City set to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and animated in the style of cartoonist Al Hirschfeld; it's a perfect melding of music, story and animation style. Let's hope future Fantasias (reportedly in the works) take a cue from the best of this compilation. The music is provided by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Levine, interspersed with negligible intros by Steve Martin, Bette Midler, Itzhak Perlman, James Earl Jones and others. -Mark EnglehartFantasia and Fantasia 2000 are also available together in the three-disc DVD Fantasia Collection.

Disney's 1967 animated feature seems even more entertaining now than it did upon first release, with a hall-of-fame vocal performance by Phil Harris as Baloo, the genial bear friend of feral child Mowgli. Based on fiction by Rudyard Kipling, the film goes its own way as Disney animation will, but the strong characters and smart casting (Louis Prima as "King Louie" of the Apes; George Sanders as the villainous tiger, Shere Khan) make it one of the studio's stronger feature-length cartoons. Songs include "The Bare Necessities" and "Trust in Me". -Tom Keogh One of the very best animated films that the Walt Disney Studio has ever released (and the last to be produced by Walt Disney himself), and as downright brilliant as it was on its debut in 1967, The Jungle Book makes a very welcome return to DVD in this excellent 40th anniversary double-disc set. Based loosely on the Rudyard Kipling's book of the same name, the film tells the story of man-cub Mowgli, and the friends he makes in the jungle. And it's these friends who ignite the film, with some of the most memorable characters and songs that Disney has ever put on the screen. Kings of The Jungle Book are the likes of Baloo the Bear, King Louie the villainous Shere Khan the Tiger, while supporting characters such as Colonel Hathi are just as memorable. It's astonishing that it packs so much and so many into its relatively short running time. It's an amazing achievement too that The Jungle Book bristles with such energy and fun, and that it's just as likely to enthral the current generation of youngsters as well as those of us who saw it first time round. And when those songs start playing-from Bare Necessities through to I Wanna Be Like You-it'll take some effort to not start tapping your feet. [+]

The monsters in Monsters, Inc. are just so incredibly cute-and they know it. Whereas Woody, Buzz and pals in the Toy Story saga were filled with self-doubt about just how much the children in their lives would continue to love them, here our heroic monsters and their impossibly lovable human ward Boo have no such worries, at least when it comes to the cinema audience. And that's why Monsters, Inc. , for all its wondrous computer-animated artistry, its smart humour and its family-friendly appeal, doesn't quite capture the naïve charm of its predecessors. Nevertheless, John Goodman and Billy Crystal, as scare-champions Sulley and Mike, are a great double-act whose comedy never goes over kids' heads but still reaches up to make their parents laugh. The film's central conceit-that monsters in the bedroom closet are just doing a night's work in order to generate power from screams for the city of Monstropolis-is funny and cleverly worked out; and kids will of course love the fact that the monsters are mortally afraid of the very children they are trying to frighten. The animation is extraordinarily detailed (Sulley's fur is a marvel in itself) and the set-piece action sequences top anything that has gone before for sheer audaciousness. But overall Pixar play things very safe, from the hissable villain to the end credit "outtakes". A bolder film might have taken inspiration from The Nightmare Before Christmas; instead, a little of that Disney disease of knowing cuteness seems to have crept into the formula. [+]