Pack up your children, grandchildren, neighbor children. For heaven's sake, go alone. But definitely go to the newest Walt Disney Pictures animated feature, The Rescuers Down Under.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 15, 2024

With its exhilarating action sequences, Walt Disney Pictures' The Rescuers Down Under challenges the adventure films of Spielberg and Lucas and confirms the special power of animation to present extravagant fantasies on screen.

| Dec 15, 2024

It has pushed the limits of visual style to something that approaches the splendor of Pinocchio. It may be the most beautiful animated film ever made in this country.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 15, 2024

The storyline for the 29th full-length animated feature from Walt Disney Pictures is nothing spectacular, but its depiction of the Australian outback is a visual treat.

| Dec 15, 2024

At times, we seem to be on a thrill ride, plunging down a roller-coaster slope or cracking around a corner like a whip.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 15, 2024

It's a far better piece of animation than the dismal Oliver and Company of 1988 and last year's smartly conceived but indifferently executed Little Mermaid. Butoy and Gabriel obviously love their medium, the first Disney directors to do so in years.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 15, 2024

This is no mere sequel, however. It's a successfully ambitious fusion of rich animation and colorful characters designed to tell the kind of whirlwind action-adventure tale usually reserved for such live-action escapism as Raiders of the Lost Ark.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 15, 2024

[The Rescuers Down Under] stands very well on its own as a mixture of engaging schmaltz and some remarkably zany slapstick humor that makes you think at times that the spirit of the Marx Brothers has taken control of the movie.

| Dec 15, 2024

The Rescuers Down Under is no Little Mermaid. It is adequate children's entertainment, though, and adults won't mind sitting through it.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Dec 15, 2024

The animation matches the story and the lead characters: competent and thoroughly unexceptional.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 15, 2024

The sequel, I'm afraid, isn't much of an improvement. It's certainly watchable, which is more than could be said for DuckTales: The Movie, Disney's other cartoon feature this year.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 15, 2024

[The original] The Rescuers was one of the few successes of the bad times. The Rescuers Down Under comes along when Disney needs no one's help in staking its unassailable claim on the nation's children.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 15, 2024

It's great to have a movie that teaches kids about ecology in a way that's so much fun they won't even know they're in school.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 15, 2024

A modest action cartoon, with entertaining business and a taut tale of a child in jeopardy. But it's a bit short on charm and humor, and not destined for classic status in the Disney animation oeuvre.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 15, 2024

From its eye-popping opening, everything about this film is big: endless Australian vistas; looming, exotic-bug-filled forests; and labyrinthine chase sequences that make you feel like you're viewing through a spin dryer.

| Dec 15, 2024

The Rescuers Down Under is not only a worthy follow-up to [The Little] Mermaid, but also features some of the most amazing animation ever to come out of the studio.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Dec 15, 2024

The dialogue is snappy, the characters amusing, the flying sequences are exhilarating, and there's a realistic sense of scale -- of being a vulnerable speck of life in the immensity of the rugged Outback.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 15, 2024

A sleekly plotted, richly designed adventure full of hearty laughs, hair-raising escapades, terrific perspective tricks and a true sense of wonder and respect for nature.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 15, 2024

Rescuers Down Under falls into the "good" category, neither aspiring to or achieving the pinnacle set last year with The Little Mermaid. Nonetheless, "Rescuers" has some stunning sequences in it -- moments possible only through the magic of animation.

| Dec 15, 2024

By far the richest holiday treat for toddlers.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Dec 15, 2024