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Curious George is a mischievous baby chimp, who is always getting himself into trouble. One day in the jungle he happens upon a friendly man in a yellow suit. Ted is a museum worker on the trail of a lost idol that could save his job and his workplace. George sneaks aboard Ted's ship and soon finds himself in New York, where the pair have many adventures in the course of trying to save the museum.
"Curious George" is as much a part of an American's childhood as scabby knees and dodgeball. Based on an eighty-year old series of picture books, director Matthew O'Callaghan sticks to the spirit of the original illustrations. So everything has a simplified art deco feel to it. Characters feel like those in "Belleville Rendezvous", all top-heavy frames with beaky noses and big dark eyes, adding to the retro feel. The director also takes the somewhat unusual step, in our technologically advanced age, of filming the movie in traditional two-dimensional cel-style animation (though certain 3-D aspects of the movie make me suspect it was created on computer). This gives the whole movie a sense of simplicity alien to many computer-generated cartoons. However, it means we are robbed of that extra dimension of detail that makes some of the more recent animations watchable regardless of their content. Here it is difficult not to feel cheated by the naivety of the design
and execution of the characters and their surroundings. It makes the whole endeavour feel cheap and almost slapdash. There are some nice uses of light and shade, but they can't make up for the lack of detail elsewhere in the production design. There's something about it that makes for a decidedly drowsy atmosphere that might have you nodding off. It's something to do with the soft-focus and sense of dust motes in every shaft of light that makes it feel like a lazy Sunday afternoon in the garden. Often the characters feel as if they're floating in front of the backgrounds instead of being integral to them. As a result it's hard to buy into the world presented on screen. But "buy" may be the operative word if the persistent product placement for Dole fruit and Volkswagen cars is anything to go by. And oddly, these products are better rendered than some of the characters. There are some nice little touches like an Indiana Jones-style journey with a dotted red line scoring its way across a storybook map, but they are too few and far between. Unless cute cartoon monkeys are really your thing, there isn't going to be much to hold your attention. But it is mercifully short, clocking in at a mere eighty-six minutes. It feels like a film from another, less demanding age and maybe I've been spoilt by recent media-savvy animations, but it wasn't strong enough to engross me.
The pacing throughout is fairly even, though O'Callaghan seems rather too fond of montages for my liking (compacting George's adventures) and there's no real sense of excitement at any time. It's a little too slow-moving for my tastes and unless you have patient kids or those that will simply watch any brightly coloured moving objects on a screen, you could soon have a riot on your hands. There isn't much in the way of action to keep the movie going and that lynchpin of animation, comedy, is largely absent. What few gags there are so drawn out they lose the laugh factor.
Ken Kaufman's screenplay compresses several of George's original adventures into one story. Unfortunately it is easy to see where the joins are and consequently it feels like a series of episodes hastily threaded together. There is no consideration for how children imitate what they see. Characters play in traffic, leap about the exterior or buildings several storeys above ground level and undertake all manner of perilous activities without any consequences or concern. And hasn't anyone pointed out that chimps can't swim? Oddly, though there are some concessions to modernity in terms of how things look, some aspects of the story are resolutely old-fashioned. Like the fact Ted travels to and from Africa on a ship instead of flying. There's also a lack of character development that belies the pre-school target audience. George may be cute and fuzzy, but has no personality beyond that, so it's hard to empathise with him. Supporting characters are all well-worn archetypes everyone will recognise and they are either good or bad. There is no middle ground. But as this is aimed at under-fives, it's not that surprising. The morals are crystal clear; be nice to others, make friends, have fun and beware mean people who would like nothing better than to lock your monkey friends in the hull of a cargo ship.
Will Ferrell is essentially a physical comedian, so isn't the obvious choice to voice a cartoon character. You can sense him acting like mad behind the microphone as Ted, The Man in the Yellow Hat, but that energy doesn't transfer to his vocal performance. There are a few flurries of low-level improvisation, but nothing that screams "this is a Will Ferrell performance!" Drew Barrymore is better suited to the voice-over demands, giving a likeable, if simplistic turn as schoolteacher Miss Maggie. Dick Van Dyke is clearly having a ball as the voice of ageing curator Mr Bloomsberry - it's a shame he doesn't have more to do.
The soundtrack is a collaboration between Heitor Pereira (who provides the incidental music) and the music press' favourite Hawaiian Jack Johnson. The material is inoffensive enough; all magical chimes, bongos and assorted percussion or laid-back guitar and exotic flutes that slide seamlessly into Mr Johnson's oeuvre. There are some bigger orchestral suites as the movie progresses that feature triumphal horns when things come together. Johnson's contribution is anodyne and relatively jolly, underlining the joys of friendship and being nice to each other, but frankly I'm a little tired of his middle-of-the-road guff.
"Curious George" is a film strictly for under-fives. I suggest you let your little monkeys watch this one while you do the crossword or talk on the phone. Otherwise it will send you to sleep while they create George-inspired havoc and you may wake to find copycat finger paintings on the wall or little people trying to escape over the back fence armed with a bunch of balloons.
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Your favourite little monkey, Curious George, comes to life for the first time in an ... more
all-new animated movie featuring the voices of Will Ferrell and Drew Barrymore.Discover how George, the inquisitive little guy with an insatiable taste for adventure, ...
![Curious George [DVD] [2005]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78471554.jpg "Curious George [DVD] [2005]")
Oct 3rd, 2006
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