The Three Caballeros Review: Disney Marathon

Spoilers

So, the previous Disney movie, Saludos Amigos was designed to help improve relations between South and North America in an attempt to make South America allies in World War II. This film is a continuation of that idea, in many ways The Three Caballeros is a sequel to Saludos Amigos. Just like its predecessor, The Three Caballeros is split into numerous segments. The second half of this film actually does a good job at making the segments feel like part of a connected story. So, with this film being a mix of the segment-based story telling of all of the package era Disney films and a more traditional narrative I will explain the plot as a singular narrative but dive into what I liked and disliked about each segment. And there is much more to say about this film than Saludos Amigos (is that a good thing? We’ll get to that).

The film starts with Donald Duck alone celebrating his birthday in some giant purple void for some reason, he has three presents (this is the framing device for the segments). The first present Donald receives is a film projector which just shows us a random short about a penguin that has nothing to do with the Latin American theme that is present throughout the rest of the movie.

This short is called ‘The Cold-Blooded Penguin’ and is by far the best thing about this film, it is so separate from the rest of the film that even though I only first watched this a couple of weeks back I still think of it as some random charming Disney short I watched, and not as part of The Three Caballeros. The short follows a penguin called Pablo who hates the cold and after cursing God for making his life a living hell decides to move to a warmer climate Yeah, it has the most predictable ending ever of him now finding it too warm in his new environment but it’s a good enough time that you should saver as the movie gets much worst later on. Oh, and on a side note it is narrated by Sterling Holloway who voiced Winnie the Pooh and it is just so distracting because he just naturally sounds like Winnie the Pooh so this short just feels like it is being narrated by Winnie the fucking Pooh.

The second short shown on Donald’s projector is called ‘The Flying Gauchito’ and follows a little boy finding a flying donkey and using it to win a race. I honestly kind of just zoned out during this segment as it was just really boring.

After the two unrelated shorts the film becomes one singular plot with any shorts that are shown being plot-relevant, so that’s good, I guess. Next, Donald goes to open his second birthday present which is a book which just contains José Carioca in it. He starts singing about how much he loves Baia (a state in Brazil) in a song which is actually pretty great.

José is a much funnier character in this movie than he was in Saludos Amigos where they clearly didn’t have his character down yet. I would compare José to Bugs Bunny in many ways, a friendly character who is happy to prank his friends and enemies alike. Apparently, he is really popular in Brazil and anyone from Brazil reading this, I would love to hear your thoughts on the character (I know some of you read my website, I have the stats).

Anyway, they both shrink down into the book which somehow gets them to Baia. This is where the movie nosedives so hard that it becomes one of the worst Disney films ever made. The film turns from a charming enough premise with some likeable characters, to a film which is just Donald Duck wanting to fuck live-action human women, and I’m not exaggerating when I say this fills up the majority of the runtime from now on.

First Donald and José end up in Baia where they find a (you guessed it) live-action human woman. She sings a bunch about the culture of Baia whilst Donald chases her around trying to impress her and actually ends up getting kissed by her at the end, what would Daisy think Donald you cheating bastard.

After this whole ordeal Donald and José go back to Donald’s endless purple void, shenanigans ensue involving Donald being too small to reach his third gift as they shrank down to go into the book. After Donald grows in size (he’ll be doing that a lot later wink wink), we meet the third caballeros Panchito Pistoles.

Panchito is from Mexico and his whole character revolves around his love of guns (America that’s your thing don’t blame it on the Mexicans). I haven’t got much to say about this character to be honest because he hasn’t really got one, at least in this film anyway, maybe in later works his emotional character arc will make me cry.

They then sing the song called ‘The Three Cabelleros’ which has the lyrics “When some Latin baby. Says yes, no or maybe. Each man is for himself” which kinda implies Donald Duck raping someone. Yeah, let that sink in. This is absolutely disgusting. If Dumbo was the most racist Disney film that Disney acknowledges, then The Three Caballeros is definitely the most misogynistic. The film literally boils women down to being objects numerous times throughout and it is so uncomfortable to watch. Whilst this is definitely the most problematic line in the film it gets even more obviously sexist later on.

After the three ‘heroes’ explain Mexican Christmas traditions for some reason, the worst part of the film happens. They all fly on over Mexico where I kid you not, there is what feels like about ten minutes of Donald Duck chasing Mexican women who are running away from him saying the words “come here my little enchiladas”, I honestly threw up in my mouth a bit when he said that line. The scene just never fucking ends and if I wasn’t committed to watching every Disney classic, I would have just turned it off. After this they go to another Mexican location where Donald falls for yet another live-action woman.

Finally, another live-action woman begins to sing where Donald gets so horny, he starts to vividly hallucinate dancing women and at this point I just had enough of this shitty movie. Lucky for me it finishes after this.

Honestly unless a film really fucks up in the future of this marathon this is going to be my least favourite Disney Classic. I’d say, watch the first short and then stop watching, that short and one catchy song is honestly the only thing that’s stopping this film from getting a 1/10 in my eyes. But talking about songs let’s briefly talk about them shall we.

‘Baia’ is a fun enough song and the one I mentioned a couple of sentences ago. The lyrics involve José singing about how much he loves Baia in such incredible detail that I couldn’t help but laugh when we find out he’s never actually been to the place. ‘The Three Caballeros’ is a song I’ve already talked about due to its problematic section. It fits into the category of Disney songs which are kinda catchy but are completely ruined by their lyrics. The last song ‘You Belong to My Heart’ is what plays during Donald’s horny induced hallucinations so I really don’t want to talk about it.

Does the film at least look good?

Other than the two opening shorts, the film is a horrible mixture of animation and live-action, and this was before the technology was there to do this well.

The most interesting thing about The Three Cabelleros is that it actually became a franchise and has a presence at the Disney Parks for some reason. The ‘Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros’ is an actually decent boat ride attraction in Epcot where you explore Mexico with the titular characters. This was a better experience than anything from this movie.

Most of Disney’s great films end up with a TV series (the series really vary in quality) apparently this one also gets a fucking TV series. ‘Legend of the Three Caballeros’ is a 2018 animated series that is apparently alright, marking the first time a Disney TV series was better than the movie it was based on. I’ll have to be really running out of things to watch before I give it a shot, but it is interesting that they decided to make a TV series on this film. The Three Caballeros also has a huge comic book line, and apparently, they’re great. It honestly seems like the only bad thing about The Three Caballeros is The Three Caballeros.

So yeah that’s The Three Cabelleros, honestly the worst Disney film I have ever seen, and unless one of the upcoming films that I haven’t seen is the worst thing ever I doubt that will change. Next up, Make Mine Music.

2 / 10