*ANI-MOVIES, *The Princess And The Goblin

Even though there had already been a segment of Fractured Fairy Tales that covered the George Macdonald's novel The Princess And The Goblin, Hungarian director Jozsef Gemes and his Pannonia Film Studio did their own feature-length animated movie in 1991 produced by Welsh TV network S4C making it the first ever cartoon movie done in Wales. It got a British dub in 1992 which fit in as Disney's renaissance was chugging on well giving it some leeway since it was a princess fairy tale. The film didn't fair to well in American theaters since it was released at the same time as The Lion King and only got a minimum amount of praise because they gave away a free phone card for kids to use in an emergency. The animation for the early 90s is mildly conspicuous, but nothing all that breathtaking except possibly the unique backgrounds. The main selling point was the English cast with the late comedian Rik Mayall playing the titular goblin, although if you're a regular of British animation, you'll notice it's pretty much a copy of David Jason's original incarnation of Count Duckula with a Daffy Duck lisp, so it's sort of a waist of Mayall's talent.

Taking place in a castle near a mountain mine, Princess Irene gets lost from her guardian and cornered by some dark creatures only to be saved by the miner boy Curdie who scares the monsters away with singing. Curdie finds out there are goblins living underground near the mines and are planning on flooding them out. The goblin prince Froglip wants to capture Irene and make her his bride to get back at humans for forcing them underground years ago for not being nice, but Curdie is imprisoned by the goblins when they find him. Irene gets some help from the spirit of her great-great-grandmother who she was named after and receives a magic ring which will lead her to free Curdie due to an invisible thread. The goblins attack the castle leaving Curdie to save Irene from Froglip just as the flood intended for the mines ends up a wrecking most of the castle instead which washes all the goblins away.

The Princess And The Goblin is a serviceable movie for children with decent storytelling, just not all that gripping. The design and strange antics of the goblins are jovial enough going the route that you might not see in your average Looney Tunes, although it seems some of the animators had a bizarre fetish for the loathsome goblin queen who is the fiercest fighter out of the whole lot. There are times especially near the end when you can tell the quality of animation was slipping possibly because of budget issues. You're not really missing out on giving this particular movie a pass, so don't worry if you can't find a copy of the old VHS or the DVD release as its not regularly available on streaming.