SPOILERS In the 1970s, the parents of future main screen English actress Emma Thompson, discovered a little French cartoon which they brought across the English Channel. Called 'The Magic Roundabout' this animation was a favourite of many people over the years it was shown. Entertaining and light on plot with audiences constantly joking about characters being on drugs, it became a mainstay of British children's entertainment. As a result of it's success, if you skip forward to 2005 and low and behold, we finally have a film version. Featuring major British actors plus two famous singers, this modern day version is a CGI extravaganza which suffers from one fatal flaw. It's awful. Weak and unimaginative, it contains multiple film, music and drug references without ever actually making us laugh. It could be argued that children will love it, and that's entirely possible, but there are just so many lines involved which children wouldn't understand that questions have to be raised about the chosen market audience. All in all, 'The Magic Roundabout' is a turgid affair.
Dougal the Dog (Robbie Williams) is attempting to steal candy when he accidentally releases the evil ZeeBad (Tom Baker). Turning the world to ice, ZeeBad requires three crystals to turn the Sun to ice. With Dougal and friends also after the crystals however, this soon becomes a race against time.
It's hard to know where to start when chastising this abomination of modern cinema. Whether you choose to condemn the mediocre unimaginative vocal acting (only Bill Nighy as Dylan deserves any sort of acceptable for his role here), the terrible jokes which are hideously unfunny, or the horrendously bad soundtrack (rescued only briefly by 'Mr Blue Sky') there is enough to be able to criticise for hours.
The film is just so twee too. In cartoons aimed at young children, you do have a degree of this sweet natured garbage, but 'The Magic Roundabout' just surpasses all acceptable levels. It's cheap, it's nasty and it really is so sickening that you find yourself wanting to vomit for the full eighty minutes.
Drug references are consistent too. In the original series, the characters were not actually meant to be on drugs. These constant speculations came afterwards and were forever denied by the English writers. In the film though, it's like the writers know about this gossip and intentionally put in references. Whether it's Dylan wanting to save the grass or Dougal's sugar addiction, the presence of drugs never seem particularly far away. These links, whilst in a way slightly impressive in a tribute sort of way, are far too overplayed and would pass over anyones head who had no idea about the original series. Ironically despite the constant references, nobody ever really shows signs of being high (except the forever stoned Dylan of course). Whilst this is obviously a good thing since this is a children's film, it does serve as an interesting dilemma. In the 1970s when the characters were all drugged up, they were fun to watch, now after the Millennium, they've cleaned up their act and are remarkably boring. If anything, this film serves as the ultimate advert for drug usage. You certainly wish they'd take something to make them more entertaining.
Broadcast in the 1970s, the original 'Magic Roundabout' was a cornerstone of children's entertainment. It stands there proudly to this day. Updated to the 2000s though, the entire premise fails to hold water in the modern world. Awkward and unfunny, badly written and badly acted, this film is really not worth your effort. A horrible waste of eighty minutes, it should never have been made and it is an abomination of the genre of animation. Avoid.
