I will give this feature length take on the popular old animated television series this: The makers of the movie do deserve an "A" for effort. You can really sense the director pumping in the energy and the screenwriter rapidly writing one joke after another. Sometimes all this energy does work for the movie's benefit, being that there are some amusing gags and the cast gives it their all. But all the same, the movie doesn't work in the end. The reason why the movie fails is its inadequate script. While I said there were some jokes that worked, there are also a lot of jokes that feel really lazy and unfunny. But bigger problems can be found with the characters and the narrative. ALL the characters in the movie are really thin, and seem to assume that you'll already be familiar with them. People who have not watched the show may be kind of lost. Just as big of a problem is with the story. The story is quite thin, frequently content to just move from one vignette to another with little to no advancement in the story. This is clearly padding, though at the same time there are some really big leaps in the narrative that suggest that some key plot turns got cut out before being released. Maybe kids who are familiar with the old TV show may get more out of it than I did, though I sense even they will get a feeling that the movie doesn't get anywhere near its full potential.
Review of The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle
