Catch this animated dog while you can, ’cause its boring self will be gone and forgotten very, very soon, notwithstanding some famous names in the cast.
This is actually a re-dubbed,
misspelled, apparently director-free version of the British computer-animated
movie The Magic Roundabout, which was an adaptation of a TV series about
a dog called Dougal, who in turn was formerly a French dog called Pollux.
Judging by the IMDB ratings, the law of entropy has led to increasing, and
severe, decay. What’s bad? First, the hero has just less than no personality,
and an annoying ten-year-old-boy voice. (Singer Robbie Williams was the UK
Dougal.) The other voices are better. There’s a train-load of talent—and not
just Chevy Chase (!), the voice of the train, and Whoopi Goldberg, but people
like William H. Macy, UK holdover Ian McKellan, and, narrating the story like
it’s Aesop, Judi Dench. Jon Stewart voices the villain, Zeebad, “a blue spring
who tries to freeze things by shooting ice out of his mustache” in Stewart’s
words. There’s a good spring, too, “Zebedee.” In this movie, even the names are
annoying. The plot has something to do with Zeebad trapping Doogal’s best
friend in a frozen carousel and he and his animal friends having to find some
magic diamonds to rescue her. I promise that any kid who sees this movie will
not give a flying snail or a dumb bunny whether they rescue her or not,
especially since she already seemed like a stiff in the two minutes of the
movie before she gets frozen. Doogal is also chock full of the sort of
savvy/timely cultural references young children are sure to pick up on,
everything from Phil Collins’s “Sussudio” and The Shining, to, of
course, Iron Butterfly’s 1968 proto-metal epic “In-A Gadda-Da Vida.” At the
same time, adults who might get all that (and Stewart’s lite-snarky patter), or
even kids older than about seven, are not going to be enthralled by a weak
animal tale with a Barney-like message about friendship. In short, this is
Zeebad movie.
posted 9/10/13
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