'Rocky and Bullwinkle' Review

The Bishop Don "Mack" Donald checks in with word of having caught a recent screening of this weekend's upcoming The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Here's what the Bishop thought:

Directed by the Broadway maestro Des McAnuff (TOMMY), THE ADVENTURES OF ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE takes the beloved moose and squirrel and sticks them dead center in a wildly misguided film. Watching it is like staring at a child throwing a fit in front of his mother at a Toys R Us. You kind of want to see how it turns out, yet most of what you are watching could've been easily avoided had their been a careful consideration of what the participants were going to get themselves into. The animated ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE (from 1959-1964) was absurdity gently finessed with camp. The new live action version begins and ends as camp, with the very idea of finesse thrown away in the opening scenes

. After literally escaping the cartoon world through a development deal at a movie studio ("They were attached to the project." ha ha, get it?), Fearless Leader (Robert DeNiro, making absolutely sure we forget his talent) and his two lackeys Boris (Jason Alexander) and Natasha (Rene Russo) set out to destroy the world by taking over television with their own network, RBTV or Really Bad Television. Coming to the rescue is federal agent Karen Sympathy (get it?) who rescues Rocky and Bullwinkle from the recently deforested Frostbite Falls, Minnesota to help save the world from the evil trio.

Similar in tone to last summer's monstrosity INSPECTOR GADGET, ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE is a film which tries to resurrect a concept that worked in it's time and day, but now is dated and sorely lacking in relevance. The half-baked pun comedy that made the Jay Ward creation such a hit 30 years ago (it's popularity still endures) has been copied and reshaped into many recent incarnations in the current climate of animation, that it doesn't stand out to kids like it once did. What was funny in 1960 isn't so funny anymore. This new movie stands by it's script somewhat proudly, milking bad joke after bad joke, and sending the characters through their cartoon paces. It simply doesn't work. It's also a wonder why all the money was spent to make this a live action affair when the tragically simple animation of the original cartoon would have done just as well, maybe even better?

I'm not sure kids are even going to understand what's going on half the time. It's nice to see ROCKY aim a large portion of the jokes at adults, but are children going to understand a TAXI DRIVER reference? A lighthouse in the middle of a movie studio that only emits a green light? New York streets in which every conceivable inch of road is covered in taxi cabs? Cameos from Jonathan Winters, Billy Crystal, and John Goodman? While the adults laugh at these "jokes", the kids in the audience will become antsy. And the film's logic is when all else fails for the children, just hurl Bullwinkle into a wall. The script by Ken Lonergan is desperate to remain faithful to the wonderful source material, but never quite finds the right tone. At 90 minutes, ROCKY is far too long to be engaging, especially when the original cartoon ran in 5 to 10 minute increments.

Sadly missing from the material is Ward's other creations. Instead of ROGER RABBIT inspired insanity in which all the characters in the Ward world are unleashed upon the unsuspecting globe, all we get are the 5 main characters. I was partial to Sherman and Mr. Peabody myself, and feel a little let down that not even a nod to them is presented. Although it should have been, this isn't a loving tribute to the Jay Ward catalog.

Vividly embodying their ink and paint doppelgangers, both Rene Russo and Jason Alexander do agreeable work as Natasha and Boris. I give them extra credit for nailing down the right timbre of the character's voices. Having been already envisioned as live action characters (in the 1988 flop BORIS AND NATASHA, with Dave Thomas and Sally Kellerman in the roles of Boris and Natasha), Russo and Alexander seem a little more faithful to the original creations this time around. They are fun to watch. Newcomer Piper Perabo (the upcoming COYOTE UGLY) is actually the main character here, playing the earnest but fallible Agent Sympathy. Perabo is not a unique talent - a mix of Julia Roberts's look here, a little Drew Barrymore's self-effacing comedy there - and she manages to over-compensate for the lack of touchable co-stars by acting as though she has 15 seconds to live in every one of her closeups. She's one tiring actress to watch, and her performance in BULLWINKLE doesn't carry the emotional angle of the film like it's meant to.

While die hard fans will undoubtedly find something to love about ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE, family audiences have far too many choices this summer to take more than a passing glance at this film. That's not saying that the characters of Rocky And Bullwinkle are without charm. Next time they should just stay in the cartoon world where they are best represented. ---------- 3/10



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