Review: George Lucas-Produced Animated Musical Fairy Tale 'Strange Magic'

When Disney purchased Lucasfilm from George Lucas back in 2012, they were mostly in it for "Star Wars," a property that the company knew it could exploit and synergize and spin-off with the kind of aplomb that only Disney can muster. But there was something else in that deal that they weren't entirely sure of: "Strange Magic," a computer-animated fairy tale that had been a passion project of Lucas' for more than a decade and was being developed in earnest as the company was purchased. Now the project feels like a Skywalker orphan, left to fend for itself on the desolate planet known as Late January. It's a complicated, uneven film, equal parts bewitching and repellant, and it should command an almost instantaneous cult audience due to its trippy visuals and jukebox musical soundtrack. Even if it doesn't totally work, it's hard not have a kind of begrudging admiration for its weirdness.

Inspired, in part, by William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's...