TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Mickey Mouse is such a goliath of a cultural icon that it's tough to fathom where he came from, how he became so significant or why he endures despite hardly ever starring in new material.

"Mickey: The Story of a Mouse," which drops on Disney+ Friday, manages to shrink Mickey down to size and put his significance into perspective, and manages to do it in a consistently entertaining manner.

The film may be geared toward Disney mega-fans, but has value as a somewhat neutral cultural examination of the figure's evolution.

Director Jeff Malmberg tells a vivid, vital and often eye-opening story of the growth and mutations of the character over the years.

Going back to the character's creation in 1928 — purportedly by Walt Disney on a train ride — Malmberg sifts through troves of rare footage and archival interviews to craft Mickey's sprawling life story and influence.

I expected the Disney-produced documentary to stay overtly positive, but a portion of the film focuses on uncomfortable moments that crept into Mickey's past, such as appearances in cartoons with overtly racist images.

The film also tackles the character's long, winding descent into cultural ambiguity and irrelevance. Malmberg gives examples of the way the generations co-opted the character to their own purposes. It also mentions Disney's hard-line copyright enforcement of the image over the years, as well as businesses that dared to use Mickey to their purposes without permission.

This peek into Mickey's dark, forbidden sign is by far the most appealing aspect of the film. It would be interesting to get a look at the themes and footage Malmberg cut for time or purposes of pleasing his corporate backers.

"Mickey: The Story of a Mouse" has to tapdance a fine line between investigation and Disney-sanctioned entertainment, and manages the task with aplomb. It's enough of a peek behind the curtain to intrigue, if not satisfy, your curiosity about the mouse's winding path.

RATING: 3 STARS OUT OF 4.

TUCSON, Ariz. — Phil Villarreal: The tactical ops action franchise "Rainbow Six" goes back to the late 1990s and has had gamers sneak through underground corridors, rappel down the sides of glitzy Vegas casinos and navigate drones through tripwires. It's covered so much ground over the decades that it was inevitable that developers would get bored with earthly enemies and turn their attention to another world.

In "Rainbow Six Extraction," the world's special forces unite their attention on an alien threat.

The multiplayer-focused throwdown, set for a Jan. 20 release date, pushes the franchise forward in meaningful ways while also falling back on established tropes.

I found the visuals and setting entertaining, if a little hokey, and the combat to be solid yet uninspired. What did you think, Sean?

Sean Newgent: With typical Ubisoft panache, "Rainbow Six Extraction" offers great locales and perfectly fine gameplay in a wholly playable package but entirely forgettable. From the first cutscene of black goop piercing through the ground and causing havoc around the Statue of Liberty, I felt like I was playing a game that would have been dated ten years ago. In this pandemic world, we're seeing a resurgence in the market for co-op games with "Back 4 Blood" and "It Takes Two," among others. Capitalizing on that trend is smart, and "Rainbow Six Siege" has provided ample characters, weapons, and other assets to glean for a mid-budget, middle-of-the-road co-op shooter.

The gameplay loop is simple enough; each map provides objectives to complete within the time limit before moving into a safe room "Left 4 Dead" style and loading into the next area. You can go in as a single operator or with friends (the game, thankfully, offers cross-platform play). As you complete objectives and kill baddies, you gain experience for your operator. But most of your time will likely be spent trying to figure out the often confusing maps, peppered with a thousand closed doors requiring you to hold down the action button to open. That becomes repetitive and dull fast.

Did the gameplay engage you any more than it did me, Phil?

PV: I found it as a sort of comfort food. I expect a certain suite of simple pleasures and minor annoyances from Tom Clancy games, and if they're not there, it triggers my inner off-put fanboy. I got particular pleasure out of the overpowered slap-like melee kills, which punish players who don't respect the distance factor.

This has got the same rustic feel that the Clancy games have always sported, with minimal — yet surprisingly significant — adjustments that show how the tone of the series is changing as it embraces the alien threat. For me, this is a solid start that tweaks and upgrades will no doubt expand. The fact that the game is launching on Game Pass also bodes well for the size of the community. Its presence there drastically lowers the bar for players on the fence about re-upping for the newest "Rainbow Six."

Tom Clancy gamers are usually a little more sophisticated than the "Halo" and "Call of Duty" crowd, and it will be interesting to see if the community adapts to the new sci-fi bent. I felt like I was playing a spinoff of "XCOM" at times, with minimal paramilitary geek out and near-future weaponry that leans hard into a sort of space shooter vibe.

What updates or add-ons would it take to hook you in the future?

SN: For me, this is the kind of game that feels like it would be a lot more attractive on the PC if only for the modding community. Multiplayer games like this live on two things in my mind: the competitive aspect or the modding aspect, and if neither are present, I feel the game will sink almost immediately. It seems "Extraction" will offer ongoing events and specials to keep players on their toes and offer some variety, but I'm not sure if this is a game with any sort of longevity. If you want the competitive stuff, you'll stick with "Siege." If you wish the co-op experience with the ability to mod it until your computer catches on fire, you'll play "Left 4 Dead".

That said, again, I think with a team of friends, anything can be a lot of fun, and "Extraction" allows you to role-play the brilliant military tactician or Rambo-style operator of your dreams. As a single-player experience, it will lack that charm of yelling at your buddies about how they should have cased a room with a drone before running straight in like the bad AI of a PS2-era Clancy game. But even then, I think the game's atmosphere compounded with how trite the enemy types are and how derivative it all feels will have you and your friends forgetting the game after a handful of sessions.

Will you be playing the game into the spring?

PV: I can see myself checking in periodically, particularly when the community gets excited about a new content drop or when Ubisoft offers a double XP promotion. But to keep me playing over the long haul, I will need to develop a routine with a few friends that make it an appointment game. There isn't much reason to keep coming back for more without watercooler-style thrills to discuss with buddies.

A game like this truly lives or dies via the shared highs and lows of squad-based multiplayer action. It would help if you felt as though you're a true part of a team of communicative players equally working toward shared goals and against those trying to undermine you. I think there is potential for that to happen, but there are just as high of odds that I won't touch the game again after a few more weeks. Sure, "Rainbow Six Extraction" will thrive now that it's the hot new thing, but will it be backed with the game-as-service oomph it will take to survive the next challenger? Only time will tell. Parting thoughts, Sean?

SN: Was I more inclined toward a squad-based tactical military shooter like "Extraction," I'd still pine for something a little more creative to play. My biggest problem with the game is that it could work, despite all the overused ideas, if it were less grounded in the hardcore military fantasy of a Tom Clancy novel and thrived more on how bonkers the entire notion truly is. There's no aura of fun radiating from the game. It's just a delivery device for you and your friends to create that hit of dopamine. As with most Ubisoft games, everything works — it plays well, looks good — but it reeks of the corporate boardroom checklist that most popular media need to stand up to before hitting the market. If you're looking to slake your thirst for some co-op military shenanigans, this is the game for you. For anyone else, it's going to fly under the radar and invade the local Best Buy bargain bin.

The publisher provided review codes.

Sean played the game on PS4; Phil on Xbox Series X.

Sean Newgent on Twitter
Phil Villareal on Twitter

More Reviews on Sean Newgent's Website
More Reviews on Phil Villareal's Website

Past game reviews by Sean and Phil:
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy
Diablo II Resurrected
NEO: The World Ends with You

Phil Villarreal and Sean Newgent at KGUN first reported this story.

There is a scene in "Muppets Haunted Mansion" — as there is in many Muppets movies — in which Fozzie Bear tells awful jokes and gets things thrown at him by a disgusted audience.

The movie itself bombs in a similarly heinous manner. And like Fozzie, it's proudly oblivious in its determination to go on.

The 49-minute comedy, which debuts on Disney+ Friday, is barely long enough to be considered a movie.

And somehow still way too long. It's a simplistic and half-hearted way to generate fresh content to satisfy the unrelenting hunger of subscribers.

In its ramshackle manner of cramming two beloved brands together, it manages to tarnish them both.

The title says it all.

This is the Muppets at the Haunted Mansion, for no discernible reason.

The flimsy premise has Gonzo agreeing to spend the night in the spooky house to win a contest and boost his online credibility.

As social media challenges go, this one is right up there with Tide Pods.

The only value here is for extreme fans of the Disney ride. References and fan service abound, almost to the point of absurdity.

The plotline roughly follows that of the 9-minute attraction, which warps your cherished memories of "The Haunted Mansion," with a script filled with awful puns and eye-rolling sight gags.

Will Arnett, Ed Asner, Danny Trejo, John Stamos, and Taraji P. Henson all pop up, no doubt to fulfill loose ends in Disney contracts. Too bad for them that a costume stipulation for paper bags overheads wasn't also written in.

Director Kirk Thatcher, who directed the 2002 Muppet TV movie "It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie" and has had a hand in some others, should have known the material well enough to squeeze something — anything — of value from the ill-advised project.

The Muppets can be amusing enough on their own to make nearly anything watchable for 49 minutes.

It took some doing to make a film this short this boring, and if it's not nominated for Razzies, it will only be because it's too slim to qualify for consideration.

Poorly-made horror movies often wind up as comedies.

This is a poorly-made comedy that becomes a horror movie. It crashes and burns in a way that Fozzie could appreciate.

RATING: 1 star out of 4

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TUCSON, Ariz. — With its Tony-studded Broadway pedigree, "Dear Evan Hansen" seemed like instant Oscar material.

Instead, it's a more than two-hour public service announcement about why not all stage musicals should be adapted to film.

Ben Platt reprises his Broadway role, and his sense of empathy and incredible singing voice are tasked to carry the film.

Although Platt's performance is admirable, it's nowhere near convincing enough to make the 28-year-old actor look compelling as a high school senior.

He oversells the slouchy sullenness meant to make him look like a vulnerable teen, and the performance as a whole comes off as a distracting attempt to try too hard to turn back the clock.

The awkwardness translates to the overall tone of the film.

Director Stephen Chbosky, who proved a deft hand at translating the emotional rhythms of school life in "Wonder," squanders whatever momentum he has when he transitions abruptly into songs.

Often slow and drawn out, these numbers -- which undoubtedly connect with audiences in live performances -- seem stiff and disjointed to the point that they are more likely to draw laughs than tears.

Platt plays the title character, a social outcast who generates his first brush with popularity once he starts pretending that he had a covert friendship with Connor (Colton Ryan), a classmate who killed himself.

Continuing the lie not only to boost his self-esteem but soothe the pain of Connor's family, Evan sinks deeper into a trap of his creation that piles on the already overwhelming anxiety and insecurity he faces.

Tragically, the fraud undermines his budding relationship with Zoe (Kaitlyn Denver), Connor's sister and Evan's longtime secret crush.

The supporting cast, which includes Julianne Moore as Evan's harried single mother and Amy Adams as Connor's heartbroken mom, is excellent, except for when they're asked to cut out of the story and start singing.

The problems with this adaptation trace back to the original script.

The project may have been better served to ditch the musical trappings altogether and trust the heft and nuances of its writing to translate the torrent of adolescent angst from which it draws.

But even after everything was shot, the film might have greatly benefited from some ruthless editing. Deleting two or three of the song numbers would have gone a long way toward smoothing the flow of the disjointed film.

It's particularly disappointing that "Dear Evan Hansen" fails to connect because it brings up some challenging notions of alienation and community -- especially in this social media-infatuated age -- that bare study and discussion.

Its points ring hollow, though, because the film is so weakly executed. "Dear Evan Hansen" feels like a high school film project from a C-student.

RATING: 1.5 stars out of 4.

Viewed Thursday at Harkins Arizona Pavilions.

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