(out of ****)
_Doug's_1st_Movie_ (G) **
_The_King_and_I_ (G) 1/2*
Doug Funnie (voice of Thomas McHugh), the 12-year-old star of Jim Jinkins's ABC and Nickelodeon animated series _Doug_, indeed has his first film, but if there's to be a second, he'd best find a vehicle more interesting to flesh-and-blood moviegoers over his age. As it is, _Doug's_1st_Movie_, in which Doug and his friend Skeeter (Fred Newman) befriend a gentle monster from a polluted lake, is a suitable entertainment for its target audience. It's simple, good-natured, and tackles an environmental theme with an admirable lack of preachiness. That said, for adults, the film is pleasant but hopelessly vanilla. While the film will hush up the kids for its lean 77 minutes, but the older ones in the audience (read: parents) will find their attention wandering elsewhere. Still, families can do worse for a night at the movies...
...such as Warner Bros.'s curious animated version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's venerable musical _The_King_and_I_. Since animation is the only medium in which the movie musical is still alive and kicking, using the form to adapt a successful stage production is a natural and undeniably intriguing extension. Plus, there is no need to worry about coming up with snappy tunes when there is a tried-and-true score at one's disposal. (And, indeed, the classic songs "I Have Dreamed" and "Shall We Dance?" are a pleasure to hear in this film, as they would in any setting.)
Yet this _King_and_I_ is the most stupefyingly incompetent animated feature to reach the big screen in recent memory--even worse than Warner's misfire of last year, _Quest_for_Camelot_. Like _Quest_, _King_ features some ragged, Saturday morning-level artwork and animation (granted, so does _Doug's_1st_Movie_, but at least there it's more or less intentional) and some clumsily integrated (to say the least) computer-generated effects. But while I can see how the flighty _Quest_ could divert the young ones in the audience, _King_ is a film with no clear audience.
The story is still basically the same: sometime in the 19th century, British teacher Anna Leonowens (spoken by Miranda Richardson, sung by Christiane Noll) develops a warm friendship with the initially icy King of Siam (Martin Vidnovic) while tutoring his many children. But, in accordance with the Disney mold, director Richard Rich has given the tale more kid-friendly trappings. Toning down the material is not necessarily a bad thing--witness Disney's triumphant, underappreciated _The_Hunchback_of_Notre_Dame_--but here the material is _dumbed_ down; the addition of cuddly animal companions, portly comic sidekicks, a sorcery-using villain, and a ridiculous action climax simply distract and never feel like necessary and natural outgrowths of the source story. (_Hunchback_'s wisecracking gargoyle device didn't always work, but for the most part, it was convincingly handled--as possibly being a figment of Quasimodo's imagination.) Hence, adults who are engaged by the basic story and the music will likely be annoyed by the obligatory kiddie concessions.
But what about these kids, for whom the alterations were made? The broad comedy garnered some giggles from the children in my audience, but most of the time I heard a lot of murmuring, some whining, and I felt a general sense of antsiness. This is because the story of Anna and the King, while all-ages-appropriate, is a mature, subtly cerebral one. And the lushly orchestrated Rodgers and Hammerstein tunes, while timeless standards, aren't exactly of the bouncy, "Hakuna Matata"-like jingle type that leaves kids humming on the way out of the theatre.
Animating any traditional Broadway musical makes for an intriguing experiment, and indeed _The_King_and_I_ is one--albeit in the wrong, train wreck-like sort of way. Based on this disastrous result, one can only hope that Warner Bros., which holds the feature film rights to Andrew Lloyd Webber's _The_Phantom_of_the_Opera_, doesn't decide to sidestep the casting controversy and opt to go the animated route.
Michael Dequina
mrbrown@iname.com | michael_jordan@geocities.com
Mr. Brown's Movie Site: http://welcome.to/mrbrown
CompuServe Hollywood Hotline: http://www.HollywoodHotline.com
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