The Magic Roundabout (2005) - film review

Whilst his friends are enjoying an outdoor music concert, Dougal, the world’s most follicly endowed dog, looks for his next sugar trip, and ends up crashing a sweet trolley into the Magic Roundabout.  The impact releases the evil Zeebad, arch-enemy of the friendly spring-bottomed magician Zebedee, from the roundabout, where he has been held prisoner for centuries.  Zeebad’s first act is to freeze the roundabout, imprisoning Florence in ice, before setting out to locate the three diamonds that will allow him to freeze the whole world forever.  Florence’s friends – Dougal, Zebedee, the hippy rabbit Dylan, the opera singing cow Ermintrude and the worldly wise snail Brian – climb aboard a magic train and embark on a desperate quest to find the diamonds before Zeebad...

Another blast from the past, and one of the unlikeliest to hit cinema screens in 2005, was this souped up revival of one of the most fondly remembered animation series ever made.  Anyone who was a child in the UK or France in the ‘60s and ’70s will remember the bizarre antics of Dougal, Florence and their surreal band of friends, in their psychedelic world which was so obviously conceived under the influence of strong hallucinogenic drugs.  If this film fails in all else, at least it will succeed in evoking happy memories of childhood television at its weird best.

The Magic Roundabout was the brain child of a Frenchman, Serge Danot.  He employed a time-consuming special effects technique known as stop-motion animation, which Ray Harryhausen had used so successfully in his films The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963).   In France, the series was entitled Le Manège enchanté and its star, the long-haired sugar-obsessed dog, was named Pollux.  The success of the series in France was matched in the UK, thanks in part to Eric Thompson’s brilliant re-writing and narration of the stories.  The series consisted of around five hundred five-minute long episodes and was broadcast in the UK on BBC1 at 5.40 pm on consecutive weekdays (just before the early evening news), from 1965 to 1977.

Much of the charm of original The Magic Roundabout series was the fact that there was nothing like it.  The characters, the setting, the stories were so unfamiliar, so insanely off-the-wall, that it captivated both adults and children and is still considered one of the most imaginative works in the history of animation.  The film adaptation does not have anything like this individuality – it is just another glorious feast of 3D CGI animation, with little to distinguish it from the countless other glorious feasts of 3D CGI animation that are fighting for our attention.

This next-generation The Magic Roundabout looks so different from the original series that its nostalgia value is limited.  The biggest let down is the storyline, which is an unimaginative rehash of Lord of the Rings meets Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Most adults watching the film will be disappointed and will see little in it to evoke fond memories of the classic 1960s series.  Children, however, will probably love it for its colourful effects, self-deprecating humour, cheery pop songs, and boisterous sense of fun.   

For both the British and French releases of the film, the characters are voiced by some very big-name actors and personalities, although this failed to prevent the film from being an immense flop.   Ian McKellen  and Tom Baker and play Zebedee and his evil twin Zebad in the British version, with Joanna Lumley as Ermintrude, Robbie Williams as Dougal, Kylie Minogue as Florence and Bill Nighy making a wonderful Dylan.  The French version features such stars as Michel Galabru, Vanessa Paradis and Henri Salvador.  So much talent, and yet even this is not enough to bring us the magic of that totally unique TV series which became a cultural icon of the most wonderfully bizarre kind. Some things just cannot, and perhaps should not, be brought up to date.

© James Travers 2008

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