# Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, The (2000)

### reviewed by
Shannon Patrick Sullivan

THE ADVENTURES OF ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE (2000) / **

Directed by Des McAnuff. Screenplay by Ken Lonergan, based on characters created by Jay Ward. Starring June Foray, Keith Scott, Piper Perabo. Running time: 100 minutes. Rated PG by the MFCB. Reviewed on July 10th, 2000.

    By SHANNON PATRICK SULLIVAN

I can remember watching "The Bullwinkle Show" when I was young -- it was in syndication by then, of course -- but I can't really say that I was a big fan. It's hard to recall, but I think I found the primitive animation somewhat off-putting, and I don't think I really caught on to the brand of humor espoused by series creator Jay Ward. And Rocky's voice really got on my nerves.

Nearly two decades later, I find my reviewing the characters' first feature-length film, "The Adventures Of Rocky & Bullwinkle". Not only are the title creatures back, but so are their Pottsylvanian arch-nemeses Boris, Natasha and Fearless Leader. Oh, and the Narrator. Rocky's voice still bugs me a little, but I guess I've learned to accept it over the years. If only that was the sole problem I had with this movie!

Unfortunately, "Adventures" has far deeper flaws than this, most of them stemming from this simple fact: movies are not just television on a bigger screen. Although superficially similar, the two media are very different. Story ideas which work well as an eight-minute cartoon short are often not quite as successful as a ninety-five-minute big-budget film. But that's what "Adventures" amounts to -- a movie which just takes a stock TV plot, dresses it up with cornball "Rocky & Bullwinkle" humor, and does nothing more to justify its existence. About the only nod to this being a movie and not a TV episode are cameo appearances by big name stars (including Janeane Garofalo, Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg -- as Judge Cameo, no less). But with the exception of John Goodman, who gets one good line, these are all gratuitous and boring.

And it's a shame, because "Rocky & Bullwinkle" feels like it could have been a much better movie. Certainly, it has moments of inspiration. Take the opening scene, which is done in old-fashioned Ward animation style. We revisit Frostbite Falls, home of Rocky and Bullwinkle. The town has been stuck in reruns for the past thirty-five years (Bullwinkle gets a residuals cheque for three-and-a-half cents) and the downtime has taken its toll. Buildings have fallen into disrepair, the forest has been clear-cut, and even the Narrator has been reduced to living with his mother and narrating the events of his own dull life.

Within minutes, however, this inventive beginning gives way to scenes set in the Real World, and "Adventures" never quite recovers. There is some nice wordplay, and some lovely in-jokes (the medical facilities at Bullwinkle's alma mater, Wottsamotta U, are housed in "J" Ward). But it is all trapped in a desperately routine plot, with obvious and prosaic moralising and -- most glaringly -- a lot of gags that just aren't funny. Consider the riff on Robert De Niro's famous "Are you talkin' to me?" scene from "Taxi Driver": it's so uncomfortably shoehorned into the movie that watching him endure it made me cringe.

De Niro plays Fearless Leader who, along with Boris (Jason Alexander) and Natasha (Rene Russo), has connived a way to escape into our world. Fearless Leader has concocted a scheme to brainwash America using his own cable network, RBTV (Really Bad Television). The FBI decides that the only people who can stop the Pottsylvanians are Rocky and Bullwinkle (voiced by June Foray, returning from the original cartoon, and Keith Scott), so they send Agent Karen Sympathy (Piper Perabo) to find a way to extract the animated duo from Frostbite Falls. Soon, the three heroes are en route to New York City, with Boris and Natasha dogging their every step.

There are enough jokes about the many cliches littering "The Adventures Of Rocky & Bullwinkle" that I'm honestly not sure if the movie was written this way on purpose, or if the jokes were added in afterward when the filmmakers realised that their script wasn't quite up to snuff. But recognising a problem and actually doing something about it are two different things, and so although acknowledging some of the movie's less logical developments (why are Boris, Natasha, and Fearless Leader "real" but Rocky and Bullwinkle still animated?) results in some laughs, it doesn't make up for the movie's much larger problems.

Perhaps the biggest flaw is the character of Karen Sympathy. Newcomer Perabo has a lot of charisma and does a pretty good job with the material she's given, but the character's pairing with Rocky and Bullwinkle is ill-advised at best. From her first appearance onward, there is no doubt that Karen is a "Rocky & Bullwinkle" fangirl, and while the movie makes some pretense of her trying to act gruff, the effort is thoroughly transparent. As a result, the interaction between the three heroes is mostly bland and uninteresting -- there is little conflict between them, even of a good-natured variety. Things would have been a lot more dynamic if Karen had been replaced with a genuinely tough-as-nails agent, like her FBI superior (who does share a hilarious scene with Bullwinkle).

De Niro, Alexander and Russo do their cartoon-character impressions well, albeit with little substance. Just count the minutes between Russo's first appearance and her first line of dialogue not spoken in concert with Alexander! Foray picks up where she left off with Rocky as if not a day had passed, and Scott is an effective replacement for both Bullwinkle and the Narrator (substituting for Bill Scott and William Conrad, respectively).

But "The Adventures Of Rocky & Bullwinkle" is one of those movies that is ill-conceived from beginning to end. Kids aren't likely to get a lot of the jokes, and adults are bound to be bored silly by the storyline. It's not a terrible film, and it's affable enough that I'm reluctant to give it a failing grade, but you need to dig awfully hard to find the good stuff. Sadly, this is yet another in a long line of TV-to-movie disappointments, seemingly designed to leave you in your seat groaning, "Oh no, not again!"

Copyright © 2000 Shannon Patrick Sullivan. Archived at The Popcorn Gallery, http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies/RockyAndBullwinkle.html

_______________________________________________________________________ / Shannon Patrick Sullivan | "We are all in the gutter, but some of us \ | shannon@mun.ca | are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde | \___________________________|__________________________________________/ | Popcorn Gallery Movie Reviews www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies.html | | Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time (Travel) /drwho.html |

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