Psycho's Movie Reviews #358: The Magic Roundabout (2005)

The Magic Roundabout is a 2005 computer-animated adventure fantasy film based on the television series of the same name. It was released in France with a French dub on 2 February 2005, and an English-language version was released two weeks later in the United Kingdom on 11 February.

In the United States, the film was released as Doogal on 24 February 2006 with a new English dub and script. Only Ian McKellen's performance was retained, while Kylie Minogue redubbed her role from the UK release.

Plot

The wizard Zebedee, a red jack-in-the-box-like creature, is having a nightmare about the ice villain named Zeebad. Dougal the well-meaning cheeky, slacker dog places a tack in the road to pop a sweet cart's tyre, hoping to be rewarded with sweets for watching the cart. After the driver goes for help, Dougal accidentally crashes the cart into the magic roundabout at the centre of the village. Zeebad, the evil blue ice jack in the box-like creature, emerges from the top and flies away, followed by a Foot Guard figurine thrown off the roundabout. The roundabout freezes over, trapping repairman Mr Rusty, Dougal's young owner Florence, and two other children named Coral and Basil within an icy cell.

The horrified villagers, who are all animals, call upon Zebedee for help. He explains that the roundabout was a mystical prison for Zeebad. With it broken, Zeebad is free to work his magic on the world again as he once did before by starting the Ice Age. The only way to stop Zeebad freezing the world is by collecting three magic diamonds (one of which is supposed to be hidden on the roundabout, while the other two are hidden at separate locations far beyond the village). Slotting the diamonds onto the roundabout will re-imprison Zeebad and undo his magic, but if Zeebad retrieves them first then their power will allow him to freeze the Sun itself. Zebedee sends Dougal, Brian the cynical snail, Ermintrude the opera-singing cow and Dylan the hippie rabbit, to accomplish this mission along with a magic train. Meanwhile, Zeebad crash lands after escaping the roundabout, and animates the Foot Guard figurine, Sam the Soldier, to help him find the enchanted diamonds. Meanwhile, Zebedee's fellowship makes camp in the icy mountains. Dougal wanders off during the night and is captured by Zeebad. Ermintrude breaks him out of his prison. Zebedee then shows up to battle Zeebad but loses the battle with Zeebad freezing him and collapsing the cliff on which he stands.

Mourning for their friend, Dougal and his friends embark to recover the diamonds. This task takes them to a lava-bordered volcano and an ancient temple filled with booby-traps and evil skeleton guards, but Zeebad captures both of these diamonds; leaving the only hope of stopping Zeebad by getting back to the roundabout and to the final diamond before Zeebad does. The gang are forced to leave an injured Train behind, leaving them to return to the village on foot through the snowy barren wasteland the world is now freezing into. Zeebad, after having abandoned Sam the Soldier to die wounded in the snow, beats the gang to the now-frozen village, but is unable to find the third diamond anywhere. Sam then arrives on an elk, having realised his true duty is to protect the roundabout against Zeebad, he tries to make a stand but is easily defeated. Having learned Sam was in fact on the roundabout, Zeebad discovers that the third diamond is and always was hidden inside Sam, and removes it from him (ending Sam's life as a result).

Zeebad, with all three diamonds now in his possession, uses them to freeze the world by freezing the Sun. However, the gang finally reach the village, get to the diamonds, and put them into their places on the roundabout until only the third diamond is left. Though Zeebad beats the gang to the diamond and seemingly secures his victory, the timely arrival of a healed Train knocks the diamond out of Zeebad's reach and gives Dougal the chance to place it in the roundabout's final slot. Zeebad is now re-imprisoned, and the world is thawed, Zebedee is restored to his friends, villagers are freed, and the Sun shines again.

Of those trapped in the roundabout, a comatose Florence is revived by Dougal. As everyone goes for a ride on the roundabout, they discover it does not work because Sam is lifeless. At this point, Sam is restored and then reverted to his inanimate form, and placed back on the roundabout which functions once again. Dougal now realises the true value of his friends and the good qualities of selflessness, courage, and humility.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the UK version of the film received an aggregate score of 60% based on five reviews (three positive and two negative) with an average score of 5.14/10. Joe Utichi of FilmFocus wrote: "For all its undeniable promise, this take on The Magic Roundabout is just plain disastrous in its execution." Stella Papamichael of BBC Online stated that "the story isn't inherently funny, relevant, or convincing. Essentially it's too 'dumbed down', tragically bypassing the cheeky 60s subtext of the original TV show and sapping its nostalgia value". Time Out wrote: "The story’s clearly aimed at the Teletubbies fraternity who would never question a scenario as ridiculous as this granted, the level of computer animation isn’t exactly state-of-the-art, but it’s certainly florid enough to captivate undemanding five-year-olds . Robbie Williams and Bill Nighy’s stoned rabbit help transform what should have been an unendurable fiasco into an, albeit forgettable, treat for toddlers. And toddlers only. William Thomas of Empire wrote: "this version is far slicker and attempts a bit of Hollywood-style action-adventure grandstanding, but it works both as a trip down memory lane and as an entertaining movie for (very) young children".

Budget $20 million

Box office $26.7 million

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Doogal (United States)

According to William H. Macy, Harvey Weinstein saw the film and decided to do an American version. On 24 February 2006, the film was released in the United States as Doogal and was produced by The Weinstein Company. In the US version, where audiences are not as familiar with the series, the majority of the British cast's voice work was dubbed by American celebrities such as Chevy Chase (Train), Jimmy Fallon (Dylan), Whoopi Goldberg (Ermintrude), William H. Macy (Brian), and Jon Stewart (Zeebad). Child actor Daniel Tay plays the titular character in the United States dub.

Only two original voices remained, those of Kylie Minogue and Ian McKellen; Minogue, however, re-voiced her own lines with an American accent. The United States version also adds Kevin Smith (Moose) and Judi Dench (narrator).

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, it received an aggregate score of 8% based on 49 reviews (4 "fresh" and 45 "rotten"). The consensus reads: "Overloaded with pop culture references, but lacking in compelling characters and plot, Doogal is too simple-minded even for the kiddies". It has a score of 23 out of 100 ("generally unfavourable") on Metacritic, and an F rating from Entertainment Weekly writing that "very young children should be angry... where is it written that 4-year-olds don't deserve a good story, decent characters, and a modicum of coherence?". It was placed number five on Ebert & Roeper's Worst of 2006. Screen Rant ranked it number 1 on its list of the twelve worst animated movies ever made.

Randy Miller of DVD Talk says that: "Doogal is, after all, one of the worst excuses for a children's film during this or any year. Filled to the brim with pop culture references and other such gags that'll be even less funny a few years from now, it's like Shrek without the occasional bit of charm and surprise".

Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune described the film as "Eighty-five minutes you'll never get back." and also put it on his Worst of 2006 list. Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "The key frame animation, based on three-dimensional models, is rudimentary, with none of the characters proving visually arresting." Ned Martel of The New York Times wrote, "In Doogal setting the world right again involves a badly paced quest for three diamonds, assorted jokes that don't land, and a daringly incoherent climactic confrontation."

Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale.

{But I assure you, the UK version is way better than the US hot garbage}

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My Review

When Dougal tries to steal a cartload of sweets, he accidentally crashes into the roundabout, releasing the evil ZeeBad and scattering three diamonds across the land. Free after thousands of years, ZeeBad plans to not only free the area but capture the diamonds and use them to freeze the sun. With Florence and her friends trapped in the frozen roundabout, Dougal, Brian, Ermintrude and Dylan set out to uncover the diamonds first and return things to normal.

First of all let me get rid of the "what have they done to the original" argument because, in my mind, this film bares so little in common with the original 5 minute TV show that it is unfair to really make this complaint. The characters may be the same in name and in visual presence but the film is totally different to the original series in terms of plot structure, intelligence, humour, animation and tone. So to me it is like a whole new film without any baggage and I tried to view it as such. As a colourful computer animated children's film it just about works and it did please the children that were in the audience who were mostly younger than seven. The plot is nothing more than a series of colourful adventures but they are noisy enough and funny enough to please this target audience even if it is hardly that good.

Adults who do manage to get over the fact that this is trampling on their memories will find little to keep them amused. The adult jokes are spread pretty thin and really aren't that clever – drug references are lazy, poorly delivered and just smack of a script trying to push the easy buttons – worse is that they are not funny. The film references include The Matrix Revolutions, Lord Of The Rings, Pulp Fiction and a few others but they are only amusing, not funny. A few lines here and there did make me laugh but they were the exception not the norm. The animation was of course going to be different from the original but I had hoped it would avoid the soulless sort of stuff that is kicked out for the Saturday morning schedules and in fairness it does look quite good but I would have preferred a bit more personality behind those computer-generated eyes than I could see. The voice talent is mixed and is sadly better in the smaller roles than in the main ones.

Robbie Williams is so different from the character of Dougal that I expected that I was sorely disappointed. He is just a cheeky chappy voice and he had no emotional range at all. Minogue is the same but luckily is in a very small role. Nighy is OK but I couldn't be sure if he sounded lazy because he had chose to be or if it was just because he wasn't putting much effort into it. Broadbent is better and suits Brian the snail and Lumley is pretty good as Ermintrude. Minor roles are must better (maybe for that very reason); Ray Winstone is expressive as Sam, Baker is great fun (and has plenty of good lines) as ZeeBad, Lee Evans is funnier than he has been for a few years and McKellen was always going to be good with his voice.

Overall this is an OK film for kids under seven because it is noisy, a bit creepy, funny and colourful. However the jokes for adults mostly fall flat and I only laughed a couple of times. Those looking to compare it with the original series should just avoid it totally because there is no connection other than the name and vague appearance of the characters; as a version of the original it is a terrible travesty, but what did you expect? As a film in itself it is still not that good but will do for young children. 7.2/10

{Plus, the theme sung by Kylie Minogue is a bop. Then again, I was brought up under a Kylie fan of a mother soooo}