The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle; Live action-animated comedy, USA, 2000; D: Des McAnuff, S: Piper Perabo, Robert De Niro, June Foray (voice), Keith Scott (voice), Rene Russo, Jason Alexander, Randy Quaid, John Goodman, Janeane Garofalo

In '64, the animated TV show "Rocky and Bullwinkle" was canceled. Their animated town went bankrupt while forest was cut down. But their evil animated rivals, Fearless Leader, Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale, find a way to Hollywood and become real characters. They buy a TV station and start to broadcast bad and dumbing down shows that will hypnotize the viewers and make them choose the Leader and their new leader. Agent Karen Sympathy brings Rocky and Bullwinkle to stop them. After a long road trip, where Bullwinkle drops by at a university, they get to New York and cast the bad trio to their animated world.

This confusing movie adaptation of the cult animated TV show "Rocky and Bullwinkle" has almost no connection with the original or it's nostalgia (even the title heroes, a squirrel and an annoyingly stupid moose, seem more episodic and colloid than they should have been) and despite the fact that it was inspired by "Roger Rabbit" and had a budget of 90 million $, it grossed only 18 million $ at the US box office. It's a pity for the distorted story and even Robert De Niro (in the role of the Fearless Leader) seems stiff in this. The movie is sufficient, but it's enjoyably sufficient. Among the original scenes is also the one where the narrator of the show goes to live at his mom after the cancellation of the show (but still follows Rocky and Bullwinkle into the real world) or the one where a producer throws movie scripts away because they are "too intelligent". The authors also make an amusing satirical commentary at mindless media in the plot where the bad guys start running RBTV that airs dumb shows that "zombifiy" the audience, while Piper Perabo is sweet in the leading human role.

Grade:+