By Kit Bowen
Story
In this make-believe world where animals can talk and magical sorcerers look like big Slinkys with a heads and arms, we meet a shaggy puppy named Doogal (voiced by
Daniel Tay). The candy-loving mutt lives a carefree life, entirely devoted to his best friend, Florence (voiced by
Kylie Minogue). But when the evil sorcerer Zeebad (voiced by
Jon Stewart) escapes from his ancient prison, he vows to exact revenge by collecting three magic diamonds that will plunge the land into an eternal deep freeze. Now, Doogal and his friends--a cow, a rabbit and a snail--embark on an epic adventure to stop him, and save the world in the process.
Acting
Interestingly enough,
Doogal was actually already made as a direct-to-DVD movie called
The Magic Roundabout, based on the popular British animated show. In that version, all the voices were done by big-name British folk, including
Robbie Williams,
Bill Nighy,
Joanna Lumley,
Jim Broadbent and
Tom Baker as Zeebad. But I guess when the Weinstein Company brought the film over the Pond to release in the U.S., they felt the British voices were too obscure, replacing almost all them with American actors. Now, instead of
Williams, we have a kid,
Tay (
Elf), playing the dog;
Jimmy Fallon voices the laid-back rocker rabbit instead of
Nighy;
Whoopi Goldberg takes over
Lumley’s part as the opera-singing cow;
William H. Macy replaces
Broadbent as the sweet snail whose in love with the cow; and lastly, the wise-cracking
Stewart takes over as the voice of Zeebad, the maniacal Slinky head. Only
Ian McKellen as a good wizard and
Minogue as the little girl remain from the original cast. It’s a shame. I’m pretty sure the British voices would have made
Doogal at least a little better.
Direction
Honestly, why did the Weinsteins feel they had to Americanize the film? Perhaps with a distinctly British flavor, the jokes wouldn’t fall so flat.
Doogal is just one derivative after another--everything from
The Lord of the Rings to
The Matrix to
Raiders of the Lost Ark is referenced. There isn’t one truly original idea in it. The imagery is decent enough, if slightly rudimentary, but the worst part of the film is the trite dialogue. Young children probably won’t notice much, but
Doogal really insults moviegoers' intelligence. Sitting through the film is like watching one of those
Barney or
Teletubbies episodes in which you can just see how it ever so slowly lowers childrens' IQs. There’s a good reason why
Doogal wasn’t pre-screened for the press: Bad word of mouth should kill this.