June's Solo Mission

June's Solo Mission is a 2006 animated film directed by Olexa Hewyryk and Will Stamper and produced by Eric Weiner. The film is based on the 2005 TV show Little Einsteins.

Plot
A long time ago, Annie resorted on a mission to rescue her friends from a super bubble. But it will probably be June's turn when she has to rescue Leo, Annie and Quincy from a super bubble that is instead headed for the lair of a greedy green hooded man named Jiminy. But along the way, June seeks help from a group called the Castle Crashers and a saber tooth squirrel from Ice Age named Scrat.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Like the episode of Little Einsteins entitled Annie's Solo Mission, the concept is rather cool as June resorts to her own mission but later seeks help from a few friend.
 * 2) Beautiful animation that is faithful to the original show.
 * 3) The movie acknowledges that there have been too many episodes of Little Einsteins that don't focus on June that much (Unless you count all of her voice lines throughout the show and the episode Duck Duck June), and for once focuses on June which hadn't been done before.
 * 4) Because of Will Stamper's director career in this movie, he would later take his Castle Crasher character inspirations and go onto to create the game Castle Crashers.
 * 5) Amazing orignal score from Julian Nott.
 * 6) The characters are generally quite likable, especially June herself.
 * 7) Jiminy is an amazing villain, and The Giant is a great secondary antagonist.
 * 8) In regards of the Castle Crashers, they are undoubtedly funny. And their voice performances by Hank Azaria, Dax Shepard, Spencer Locke and Jimmy Fallon are amazing.
 * 9) The film spawned the Curtain Call song, which would later be used near the end of every episode in the show's 2nd season.
 * 10) It has very VERY sad moments, such as the scene where June searches for Leo, Annie and Quincy in the house and she ends up crying after giving up (This is also the first time that someone had cried in the entire Little Einsteins show.) and the scene where Green Knight tries to save Red Knight from the collapsing bridge but the red one ends up falling. Luckily, it is revealed that he survived by actually landing on a tree in the rock surface.
 * 11) Unlike the original show where the Little Einstein's friends talk in music, it marks the first time that some new characters use full on voices.
 * 12) It has some pretty smooth animation for the characters, especially for the art featured in the movie.
 * 13) The store scene which has the song Mr Sandman by The Four Aces can tend to give you some good vibes.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Misleading Title: June is later on accompanied by the castle crashers and Scrat in the movie, making it feel like a group mission.
 * 2) Adding Scrat in the film was very questionable for test audiences, considering the fact that Disney had not even purchased Fox until 2019.
 * 3) The scene where Red Knight decides to let himself fall off the bridge is rather disturbing for younger audiences and is a bit too much for a film rated G.

Trivia

 * 1) In the original script, Olexa Hewryk thought of adding Green Arrow from DC Comics as a villain, but was worried that WB would later sue them since DC Comics wasn't owned by Disney.

Box Office
June's Solo Mission opened theatrically on May 12, 2006, alongside Just My Luck and Poseidon, and grossed 45.2 million in it's opening weekend, ranking number two at the North American box office behind Mission: Impossible III. It was the most successful Disney movie of 2006 before being dethroned by Cars in June 2006.