> To charge a Disney movie with being "formulaic" is not much to the point, I realize. But "Lion King" felt like it was on autopilot from start to finish. I started getting interested in the story around the time Simba began adapting to life outside the pride -- and then, of course, the intervening years were skipped over completely to drop me right back in the storyline I didn't care about.

You know, I actually felt the same way. To this day, the story of The Lion King strikes me as all too simplistic, with the exception of Scar, a great movie villain.

What's stayed with me in the 11 years since I first saw it is the great music and the fun, buoyant spirit of the thing. Perhaps, too, the fact that the story, simple though it may be, has roots in Hamlet which in turn is grounded in things that have pretty universal resonance. So The Lion King has aged well in my memory, and I value it more in my memory than I did right after seeing it. By contrast, I saw Emperor's New Groove much more recently and barely remember it at all. It's not bad (I gave it a mild thumbs up on At-A-Glance), but it's just so empty and superficial.

I don't know how good or bad Madagascar will turn out to be, but if the movie is what the trailers suggest it is, I think it'll be basically forgotten in a year, while the Toy Stories and Shrek remain at the forefront of 3D animation for years to come. Instead of just being funny, they're funny and have the stuff of humanity in them.

> Iss "Beauty and the Beast > YOU ALL" achar

Darn right. Beauty and the Beast would have been a better one to use in that example, I guess, but I was thinking I didn't want to go back in time quite that far.