ThomasNATION Reviews - Thomas' Adventures of Disney Villains Revenge
May 15, 2021
Well, this is gonna be interesting, to say the least.
So, I don’t typically review fan-made Trackmaster movies on this website, but this is one that I just have to talk about. To begin, if you don’t know who Trainboy54 is at this point, he’s basically a pioneer in the ‘homemade TOMY/Trackmaster YouTube videos’ genre, up there with DieselD199, Dcolemanh and Ramahfool. However, he gained a reputation for being one of the more…how the kiddies say, “cringey” content creators. And I can definitely see where those points come from. I get it, they’re harmless for what they are, but the way he would implement characters from shows like Phineas and Ferb into the Sodor railway is a pretty weird idea, and not the good kind of weird. Plus the guy himself is, um…okay, the less said about that, the better. But today, we’re gonna look at his piece de resistance: a full on movie featuring characters from several Disney properties. But now that Thomas and his friends are journeying into the Disney pantheon, will this movie prove that the fans’ filmmaking can be on par with the show-runners, or is this just an add-on to Trainboy54’s reputation? Let’s begin.
To start off, the story to the film is based directly off the video game ‘Disney Villains Revenge’, where Thomas, Percy, James, Toby and Edward find an old storybook featuring four stories from the Disney pantheon. But when Jiminy Cricket pops in and tears out the endings, the stories get rewritten and the friends have to journey inside the stories to restore order. At first, this story sounds absolutely insane. There’s no way the story could work, right? Well, if you ask me, the fact that the story makes no sense at all is actually what makes it work. Again, keep in mind that this is a homemade video made purely for fun, so the nonsensical and awkward story can be excused. However, the execution still has that cringey feel to it, particularly through the dialogue. This may be because Trainboy54 was making up dialogue on the spot without a script, but most of the time, the characters are just spouting the obvious or even repeating lines. McDowell’s performance doesn’t help a whole lot either, since he gives relatively dull inflections to the characters. Plus, one other aspect I’ll get into later. If I do have something here to commend, it’s surprisingly some of the humor. I’m honestly surprised that this film can be legit kinda funny at times, particularly in some scenes with James. I’ll even say that the now lost deleted scenes are pretty funny as well. In short, the story may have an aura of cringe, but it’s still delightfully silly nonetheless.
I know I said that the homemade feel can give the story a pass, but I can’t say the same for the musical numbers. The songs all share a similar problem: they add nothing to the story. If you took them out and the movie would barely change. I guess the only song I can legit call decent is ‘You’re a Wise Guy, Mr. James” (you can probably guess what that’s a parody of). It’s a fun little number and the way the lyrics are rewritten is okay. But other than that, you get songs like “All Engines Attack”, “Thorns on Me”, “The Ringmaster’s a Bad Boss” and “Believe” which only really serve as filler. But I’ll give these songs props that they at least tie into the story in some way, unlike numbers like “Creepy on Halloween” and especially “Apple Haters” that barely even tie into the context of the scene at all. And finally, you have the weirdest cases with “Through the Hedge Maze” and “What Do You Do with a Scurvy Captain?”, which are parodies of the Backyardigans songs “Into the Thick of It” and “What Do You Do with a Scurvy Pirate” respectively. How do I know this? Because before these songs play, the original song it was based on plays, which is really weird. Another note is that going back to McDowell’s performance being pretty weak, this also applies to the songs, since his singing is pretty bad. Even if I was able to find some ironic enjoyment in the rest of the film, I couldn’t even muster that for its music.
Overall, Thomas’ Adventures of Disney Villain’s Revenge is a strange case. On one hand, it’s definitely an awkward mess with some weak voice acting and terrible songs, but then again, it’s at least harmless with earnest intentions and it does at least take advantage of the silliness of it all. If you’re curious to see what’s up, then I’ll leave a link to it below. But if you’re not a fan of Trainboy54, this definitely won’t change your mind. I’ve thought for a while on how I should score this movie, but ultimately, I’m gonna settle on a 2/5. I may not be revisiting it anytime soon, but I can at least say that I’ve seen worse - even from Trainboy54.
Final Score: 2/5
About the Author: JF the LOLZOR
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