Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

Here we are with another Disney+ Roundup! I know things have been slow lately regarding me posting reviews, but trust me when I say that there will be plenty to look forward to at the end of March leading into April. Meanwhile, let me share some thoughts on two films I’ve seen on Disney+.

The first film I saw was the 2017 film ‘The Mountain Between Us’. This film is based on the 2011 novel of the same name by Charles Martin, and it stars Idris Elba and Kate Winslet. I’ve seen Idris Elba in many films over the years. He played Heimdall in the ‘MCU’ and he was in ‘Star Trek Beyond’.

Kate Winslet of course is well-known for being in ‘Sense and Sensibility’ and ‘Titanic’ as well as being in ‘Dark Season’. It was intriguing to see Idris Elba and Kate Winslet together in this film, as they play a surgeon and a journalist, respectively. They, with a dog, survive a plane crash and become stranded.

They happen to be stranded in the High Uintas Wilderness with injuries and harsh weather conditions. There are elements of the 1993 film ‘Alive’, which is actually based on a true story. ‘The Mountain Between Us’ however is fictional and has a romance between Idris Elba and Kate Winslet.

I would have preferred it if the film had these two characters being just friends rather than as lovers. This is especially when Kate Winslet had a fiancé to get back to and Idris Elba had been married but his wife died two years ago. It’s not helped very much when the two characters have sex in this film.

Had the two characters not have any romantic connections to other characters that we don’t get to see much of in this film, then perhaps I would have been on board with this film being a romance drama survival film. ‘The Mountain Between Us’ is enjoyable, but it could’ve been handled very differently.

The second film I saw on Disney+ recently was the 1969 film ‘The Love Bug’. I did see this film in late 2022, but didn’t get the chance to review it. ‘The Love Bug’ is a sports adventure comedy film and it’s the first instalment in the ‘Herbie’ film series. It features a sentient Volkswagen Beetle called Herbie.

I greatly enjoyed checking out this film on Disney+, as it is a lot of fun to watch. When I was a kid years ago, I saw a ‘Herbie’ film one Christmas week in the 1990s. What the film was called, I can’t recall. I’m sure if I saw more of the ‘Herbie’ films on Disney+, I’ll be able to remember which film it was. 🙂

As well as Herbie, ‘The Love Bug’ stars Dean Jones, who I’ve seen in ‘That Darn Cat!’, ‘Beethoven’ and 1997’s ‘That Darn Cat’. Dean Jones plays Jim Douglas, a racing driver who ends up having Herbie as his racing car. The film also stars Michele Lee as Carole Bennett, who becomes Jim’s love interest.

There’s also Buddy Hackett who plays Tennessee Steinmetz, Jim’s enlightened and kind-hearted friend who becomes aware that Herbie is alive before Jim discovers it. There’s also David Tomlinson (who played George Banks in 1964’s ‘Mary Poppins’) as the villainous Peter Thorndyke, Jim’s rival. 🙂

I found David Tomlinson as Peter Thorndyke hilariously over-the-top when he competes against Jim Douglas and his friends in Herbie. 😀 ‘The Love Bug’ has been an enjoyable film to check out on Disney+ and I’m sure I’ll be checking out more of the ‘Herbie’ film series soon, including ‘Herbie Rides Again’.

No doubt, ‘The Love Bug’ is a film I found more enjoyable than ‘The Mountain Between Us’. I can’t say ‘The Mountain Between Us’ is awful, since Idris Elba and Kate Winslet were good to watch. But it was more entertaining to see Herbie’s first film and enjoy David Tomlinson as the film’s villain in it. 🙂

Stay tuned for another Disney+ Roundup on ‘Bradley’s Basement’ soon. 🙂

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂