Year: 1992
Director:Bill Kroyer
Country: Australia
Language: English
Avatar, Avatar 2, Dances With Wolves, The Last Samurai, Pocahontas, Driving Miss Daisy, The Help, Django Unchained, The Blind Side, Remember the Titans, Crash and The Butler. These are all white guilt films designed to please the white population and give ourselves a pat on the back for recognizing discrimination. However, none of these films offer white guilt in an entertaining way quite like Fergully does. The film has Robbin Williams rapping and Tim Curry (Rocky Horror Picture Show) singing about muck.
The magical inhabitants of a rainforest called FernGully fight to save their home that is threatened by logging and a polluting force of destruction called Hexxus.
Ferngully: The Last Rainforest is not only about not discriminating against other cultures, the white guy named Zak Young (Jonathon Ward) falls in love with a fairy named Cysta (Samantha Mathis) and realizes that he must save her people, but it is also about the dangers of log-cutting, pollution and generally not caring about the environment while having a cautionary sub-plot about the ill effects of animal experimenting. Batty, played by the hilarious Robin Williams, raps about how doctors "used and abused, battered and bruised" him, effectively selling the point that animals have feelings too.
In addition to Williams being on board, Tim Curry is too. His "Toxic Love" song is creepy as hell, effectively scaring any child that dares to sit through the nightmarish scene about greed. Cheech and Chong are in the film as well, which makes a lot of sense given their public hippie persona's. Unfortunately the film is not perfect, the story can drag on for too long and the main character's are more annoying than likeable. It can be too sentimental at times, however its target audience is children so sentimentality shouldn't be criticized too much.
In conclusion, though Ferngully seems to be largely forgotten about in comparison to the many "Disney classics" that came out that year, it still holds up in our modern age. Newer generations of children will likely skip this, however I encourage new parents to show their kids this enticing and entertaining picture. 3.5/5
Oh hey, that's my drawing of Hexxus :)
ReplyDelete