Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, The (2000)

reviewed by
Chad Polenz


The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle

I remember an old episode of "Dr Katz: Licensed Therapist" where Dr. Katz told Ben, "Puns aren't really good or bad, they're just puns." I think "The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle" is just one big argument that puns are, in fact, good.

How this film ever got the greenlight is pretty amazing. It's obviously intended to be a "family" film but most little kids these days have probably never heard of Rocky and Bullwinkle and most adults who are old enough to remember them would probably dismiss the notion of seeing this in theaters and instead just wait for video (besides, their kids are probably kicking and screaming and dragging them to the "Pokémon" movie). It's a shame because anyone who's not seeing this now is really missing out.

Think of it as a G-rated version of "Austin Powers." There's a lot of wacky cartoony humor and puns and play-on-words as well as some really sly jokes that are quite the zinging [political] commentaries. The story tells of the cartoon villains from the old 1960s TV show (Fearless Leader, Boris & Natasha) who make a deal with a Hollywood producer to make a movie and when the contract is pulled out of the cartoon world the characters come with it. "We're attached to the project" says Fearless Leader (Rober De Niro) who then admits it's a bad pun but it works for the sake of the movie.

And that's the comedy stylings at work here - verbal and physical puns and parodies all over the place. It's all tongue-in-cheek, winking-at-the-camera comedy and it works very well. Every character's name is like this such as our co-star Karen Sympathy (Piper Perabo) who is a rookie FBI agent assigned to get Rocky & Bullwinkle out of the cartoon world and into the real one to help stop Fearless Leader's devious scheme to hypnotize the world with his own TV network that broadcasts shows so bad they turn all viewers into mindless zombies.

See? Isn't that funny, witty comedy? The film makers could have just done something more mainstream and predictable and have Fearless Leader do something Dr. Evil/James Bond villain-style such as something with hostages and blowing up stuff. The fact they chose to use this method for the plot as well as jokes upon jokes is pretty uncanny. Of course there's also the common "Rocky & Bullwinkle" plot of Boris & Natasha trying to destroy moose and squirrel which occupies the first half of the film. Jason Alexander and Rene Russo are fantastic as these classic baddies and the script and props really enhance the cartoony atmosphere. It's funny, but not silly.

Now it really wouldn't do the film justice to list just a few examples of the jokes and hope that would reflect the entire movie - every one is a little different from the last one. Taken out of context they might not work, but within the movie it's funny.

GRADE: B 

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