After watching The Color Purple (2023), I was in the mood for some lighter fare.  This is nothing against that movie.  It is excellent, and I highly recommend it whenever you get a chance to see it.  It is a weighty film, though, which is why I wanted something with a more consistently cheerful tone.  The logical place to turn for such pieces is Disney.  At the same time, I wanted something with a shorter run time.  This limits the options, particularly as regards live-action examples.  Many of their animated features are on the less lengthy side, though I have already reviewed the bulk of them.  Then I recalled the strangely popular 1977 cartoon The Rescuers, and that the Mouse made a sequel thirteen years later called The Rescuers Down Under (1990).  So, with a shrug of the shoulders, I put it on my television.

In an oddly flowered area of the Australian Outback near Ayers Rock, it is young Cody (voiced by Adam Ryen) who is need of The Rescuers Down Under.  How does this come to pass?  I am glad I asked.  Despite living on the island continent, this American sounding boy has an affinity for animals.  By affinity, I mean he can talk to them, and they to him . . . in most cases.  It is one of his kangaroo friends that puts out the digeridoo call (this is Australia, after all) for the human kid to come free Marahute from a snare.  Marahute is the largest female eagle in the history of mankind, and is trapped at the top of a cliff that this eight-year-old has to scale by himself without the use of ropes.  O . . . kay. . . .  While Marahute is clearly agitated, it cannot talk (for no apparent reason, unlike most of the animals), but shows her appreciation by saving Cody from plummeting to his death.  She gives him a ride on her back, soaring through the air before finally returning to her nest so he can see her eggs.  As neat as this is, he eventually has to go (before he is eaten, but this is Disney, so probably not), and he is brought back to the ground.  On the way home, he stops to help a mouse caught in some rope, but in turn falls into a hole in the ground, trapped.  Before he can succeed in escaping, he is found by the person who placed the trap: a poacher named Percival C. McLeach (voiced by George C. Scott).  Percival is after Marahute, and when he sees the eagle feather affixed to Cody’s backpack, he figures the boy can help find the bird of prey.  Thus, Percival takes Cody prisoner, threatening the kid to reveal Marahute’s location.  The original mouse that Cody helped knows the kid is in trouble, so he has a message broadcast all the way to New York City, with some relays along the way, through the rodent network, to alert the Rescue Aid Society.  It is located in the United Nations building, and similarly has representatives from all over the globe, except their missions is to provide assistance to children in danger around the world.  Honestly, who thinks of this stuff?!  Naturally, the Chairmouse (voiced by Bernard Fox) tabs the delegates from Hungary and the United States for this mission.  They are, respectively, Miss Bianca (voiced by Eva Gabor) and Bernard (voiced by Bob Newhart).  They are not at the meeting because they are at a fancy dinner where Bernard intends to ask Miss Bianca to marry him.  Before he can ask the question, which is partially foiled by his clumsiness, they are interrupted by a summons to the Rescue Aid Society.  Miss Bianca readily accepts the assignment on their behalf, and they manage to convince the albatross, Wilbur Wright (voiced by John Candy) to fly them to the land Down Under despite it being the dead of winter.  Once they get there, with a little help from a jet liner, they make it to the area in which Cody was last seen.  It should be noted that our boy has not been sitting idle, but has been working with the other animals captured by Percival to escape.  Each time, however, they are stopped by Joanna (voiced by Frank Welker), Percival’s pet lizard.  It actually does not speak, but makes weird noises, but I digress.  Upon their landing, Bernard and Miss Bianca meet Jake (voiced by Tristan Rogers), who is charmed by Miss Bianca and volunteers to be their guide in the Outback.  Meanwhile, Wilbur conveniently has a bad back, and is left with mice doctors to be operated on with a chainsaw.  I am not making that part up, but in fairness, it stops before anything horrible happens.  Anyway, Bernard, Miss Bianca, and Roger journey deep into the wilderness, with Bernard attempting once again to ask for Miss Bianca’s hand in marriage, but being interrupted by Roger.  At any rate, they catch up with Percival, who has tricked Cody into revealing the location of Marahute’s nest.  This leads to the bird’s capture.  Luckily, the three rodents make it to the target location first, with Bernard getting left behind to guard the eggs.  Miss Bianca and Roger, though, are caught by Percival trying to free Cody.  Instead, Percival decides he has had enough of the kid and dangles Cody over a crocodile infested river.  It is down to Bernard, who manages to sneak out the keys to Percivals’ vehicle, push a grown man over a cliff, and single-handedly(?) pull a human child up to the surface of the water.  Impressive or impossible?  You decide.  Ahem!  Anyway, before they can go too far over the waterfall at the end of the river, they are all saved by Marahute, with Bernard finally popping the question.  The final shot is of the nest where Wilbur has been left to watch over the hatching eggs.

As I usually do with movies like The Rescuers Down Under, I have trouble suspending my disbelief.  Never mind the impossibilities discussed in the previous paragraph.  One that leapt of the screen for me that I did not discuss is that, according to a sign in the back of the, um, hall(?) where the Rescue Aid Society meets, it was established in 405 B.C.  So . . . before there was a New York City . . . there were mice on this spot . . . meeting to help save children around the world?  Again, who comes up with this stuff?!  I suppose I should be more charitable.  It is the Christian thing to do, as is helping a person in need.  Even so, what is also remarkable is that the human search parties looking for Cody give up long before their animal counterparts.  Look, all things are possible with God.  St. Francis of Assisi famously gave a sermon to nearby animals when he felt that his preaching was falling on deaf ears.  What I do not think has ever been recorded is whether those same birds and other beasts responded to what the saint had to say.  Could God make it so that those same creatures could talk as clearly as you or I?  Of course He could, He is God.  And before you go saying, well, why does he not do that, then, ask yourself why you are presenting such a silly scenario.  In the meantime, I will stop here because there is really nothing more to say about this film from a Catholic perspective.

That is not to say that The Rescuers Down Under is objectionable is some way.  It is just as tame as any other animated feature.  I just get caught up in details that I often wonder how other people miss.  That is okay, though, just like this movie.