PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com
Warner Bros.' second serious foray into the animation market is just as ineffective as its first (the anemic The Quest for Camelot). Here, they hack about forty-five minutes off of the popular 1956 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical starring Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner, who reprised his Broadway role and nabbed the Oscar. And, believe me, you'll be thankful for every minute that's missing.
The story is the same as it always was – Anna (voiced by Miranda Richardson, Merlin) is a widowed English schoolteacher who travels to Siam to teach the children of its overprotective and strong-handed King. She butts heads with His Holiness almost immediately and must also deal with the obligatory evil cartoon guy who wants to dethrone the existing King and rule the country as he deems fit. This guy also has magical powers, at one point conjuring up a dragon to attack Anna's boat before her arrival. Luckily, Anna is able to fend the serpent of with her amazing power of song.
The King is as empty as Paul McCartney's stomach at an all-you-can-eat ribs festival. The animation is horribly jerky and the evil guy's comic sidekick (voiced by Saturday Night Live's Darrell Hammond) is downright offensive – unless all Asian men are really short, stupid, bald, and have both rotting teeth and bad accents. And the songs – don't get me started on the songs. You'll probably be better off waiting for the real remake – not of the musical, but of the 1946 Oscar winner featuring Rex Harrison and Irene Dunne – which will star Jodie Foster as the British governess and Hong Kong action legend Chow Yun-Fat (The Corruptor) as the King. (G – 1:28 for mild violence and the possibly offensive portrayal of the entire Asian race)
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews