[MOVIE REVIEW] The Thief and the Cobbler (Miramax Version) (1993)

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Title: The Thief and the Cobbler

Starring:  Matthew Broderick, Jennifer Beals, Jonathan Winters, Vincent Price

Genre: Fantasy / Family / Romance / Adventure

Company:   Miramax

Directed by: Richard Williams

Year: 1993

MPAA Rating / TV Rating: Rated G

Buy on:  Amazon

The movie starts off with a young and poor cobbler named Tack, who was living a peaceful life until he met up with a thief and it was then that his life changed forever.  When Tack accidentally interrupts a parade in honor of Zigzag the Vizier, Zigzag then puts Tack into jail and all would have been lost for Tack if Princess Yum Yum had not fallen in love with the cobbler.  To make matters worse, the thief ends up stealing the three golden balls that were protecting the kingdom from One-Eye's army and Tack and the Princess ended up going on a journey to retrieve the balls before it's too late!

I will admit that when I first heard about this movie, I wasn't that interested in it because I was a little freaked out by the character designs.  But, after watching this movie, I ended up enjoying it a lot more because of the creativity being put into this film!  Now, I know a lot of people had complained about this movie being too similar to Disney's Aladdin, but in all honesty, the idea of this movie actually surfaced WAY before Disney's Aladdin came along (it was established in the 1960s actually)!  The sad story behind it though was that the film didn't get released until the 1990s and by then, there were a lot of changes to the movie that differed heavily from the original vision (luckily, there's a recobbled version of this film out there, that I will hopefully see soon)!  The voice acting was very well done in this version of the original script, especially with Jonathan Winters providing inner quips for the thief himself and I also loved the character designs, as they were quite bizarre yet creative to look at!  Probably, one of my most favorite scenes in the movie was the famous chase scene between the thief and Tack as it shows just how bizarre this film can get at times!

My biggest issue with this version of the movie was that there seems to be too much narration and inner monologues with the characters in places that they don't really need to talk and that distracted me from the movie at certain points.

Overall, "The Thief and the Cobbler (Miramax Version)" is a treat to check out if you are looking for a more fun loving version of Richard Williams' original classic!