THE MAGIC ROUNDABOUT

Well I went to see a preview of this at the weekend with my daughter and I was expecting it to be poor – how can you best the subliminal drugs fuelled originals? I mean come on Dougal goes all starry eyed with a magic sugar lump! It’s a starry cast for the voiceovers with Tom Baker on fine form as the evil Zeebad, Robbie Williams as Dougal (he’s surprisingly good) and of course Kylie as Florence. Forget the plot – basically three diamonds are needed by Zeebad to turn the Magic Roundabout world into an ice age – and just revel in the fantastic computer animation. Parts are very slapstick and you get a cracking soundtrack that includes ELO’s ‘Mr Blue Sky’ and Pilot’s ‘Magic’ (it seems cheesy 70’s songs are back in vogue again with filmmakers).
It’s a fun movie and as usual there are adult ‘in jokes’ (look out for Dylan’s ‘Pulp Fiction’ quip), but compare to say ‘Shrek’ it lacks that overall magical feel.