The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle

THE ADVENTURES OF ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE

Rating: C
You'll get some laughs from this film, particularly if you're a fan of the Jay Ward television series. Although for this go 'round, villians Boris and Natasha are played by live actors (Jason Alexander and Rene Russo), the producers wisely kept Moose and Squirrel firmly in the cartoon domain. The result is something like a cross between Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Inspector Gadget.

The movie begins with a brief cartoon introduction humorously detailing what our heroes have been up to since their series was canceled. Then we meet FBI agent Karen Sympathy (Piper Perabo), assigned to get the studio to greenlight the new Bullwinkle project so that the evil world domination plans of Fearless Leader (Robert DeNiro) can be thwarted. I could go into greater detail about the plot, but does it really matter? There's a scene early on where studio exec Janeane Garafalo is sorting through a pile of scripts on her desk, and feeding each one in turn into the shredder with the comment, "Too intelligent." At least they admit it.

The movie is not so much a coherent story, as a loose assemblage of individual scenes (again recalling Inspector Gadget). Along the way there are some clever sight gags, such as when Bullwinkle packs his suitcase full of white gloves (the only clothing he wears, if you hadn't noticed). Or whenever he and Rocky arrive at a new town, he remarks, "I think we've been here before" because of all the look-alike fast food joints covering the landscape.

DeNiro shares producer credit on this film, but his acting contribution is minimal. He hams it up in every scene, and at some point it stops being humorous. Similarly, every time director Des McAnuff makes his characters run around in speeded-up motion, the sound of yawning arises from the audience. The final scene in Fearless Leader's headquarters is just plain stupid and pointless and unimaginative, as if the writers gave up two pages earlier and finished the script over beers at Dodger stadium. Enjoy the witty dialogue between Rocky and Bullwinkle and keep telling yourself the rest is meant for kids, and you'll make it out alive.