Animated animal antics (From Western Telegraph)

Animated animal antics

Return To Neverland Directed by Robin Budd, Donovan Cook Starring Harriet Owen, Corey Burton, Jeff Bennett, Kath Soucie. Cert. U, Dur. 64 mins

You will have noticed that in the last few years Disney has been bringing out a huge animated picture (and all the merchandise to go with it) and then, a while later, releasing a sequel for video only (selling a load more merchandise at the same time). These cheaper Returns To... have high returns too! Then of course Toy Story II made hundreds of millions and perhaps Disneys top brass thought that releasing sequels at the cinema wasnt such a bad idea after all. They must also have felt the desire to release a real old classic, because this Easters release is a sequel to their 1953 feature Peter Pan.

Set during World War II, Return To Neverland picks up the story that Peter Pan started. Unlike Peter, Wendy Darling did grow up and we see her coping with the war and bringing up her own two children, a toddler son and a precocious 12-year-old daughter named Jane. While their father is away fighting the Nazis, Wendy tells them the tales of her childhood adventures in Neverland with Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, the Lost Boys and Captain Hook, but Jane doesnt believe a word of it. Then Hook appears in London with a new plan. He thinks he can finish Pan once and for all by using Wendy, but his plan for kidnapping her goes awry, and he takes Jane instead. Peter has to get Jane home but until she believes in the power and magic of imagination he cant help her. I have to admit that at I really enjoyed it. Maybe I yearn for the clean and simple days when Walt was alive and The Jungle Book, one of my favourite films ever, was the cutting edge. Return To Neverland is good clean old fashioned fun. When Pan soared over the London skyline of the forties I was a sucker to every marketing campaign Disney could throw at me. There is no computer game speed chase or sudden snow boarding sequence and no Jerry Springer in-jokes. All these points may be just the reasons that you or your kids will hate it? I hope not. Return To Neverland is not perfect, its not a classic, but it tastes like one.

Ice Age (PG)

Ok heres a real 21st century taste of animation.

Ice Age is the latest computer animated feature. Previous big computer cartoon movies have been noteworthy for being ground-breaking. Ice Age is noteworthy, I suppose, for being big but not groundbreaking. But it means that this is computer animation which is not seeking a new reality. It is a real cartoon, it is artistic, and I liked it. Its set so far back in history that any arguments about reality would have to be left to professors of geology and anthropology anyway. The earth has all manner of creatures, that are an animators dream, living free of everything but the fear of the coming Ice Age. In the midst of evolutions rumbling wheel a stupid sloth named Sid (John Leguizamo), Manny the woolly mammoth (Ray Romano), and a sabre-toothed tiger named Diego (Denis Leary) find a human child. Unlikely though it seems they are now responsible for returning the infant to his father. Its very hip, cute and hilarious in places for those looking for something a little more up-to-date.