THE WILD THORNBERRYS MOVIE

By: Abbie Bernstein
Review Date: Friday, December 20, 2002

A friend of mine with two kids has been raving about THE WILD THORNBERRYS animated TV series for a few years now, but I'd never caught up with it until it reached the big screen. Well, if the series is anything like THE WILD THORNBERRYS MOVIE, I've missed out, because the theatrical edition is smart, funny, consistently enjoyable and good-hearted without being insufferable.

The Thornberrys of the title are a family of explorers. Dad Nigel (voiced by Tim Curry) and mom Marianne (voiced by Jodi Carlisle) are wildlife documentarians who bring their family Valley Girl-esque Debbie (voiced by Danielle Harris), wild baby boy Donnie (voiced by Flea) and animal-loving middle child Eliza (voiced by Lacey Chabert) all over the world with them. What none of the other Thornberrys know is that Eliza has been given the gift of being able to speak with every species on Earth provided that she never shares the secret with another human. While Eliza is playing with some cheetah cubs, one is nabbed by poachers. Eliza feels responsible, but her efforts to rescue the little big cat worry her parents so much that they ship her off to boarding school in England. Naturally, the intrepid Eliza can't be confined for long, but how will she thwart the poachers, who have a truly nefarious plan to kill off an entire elephant herd?

Kate Boutilier's

screenplay has the kind of subversive, zingy humor of DANGERMOUSE, coupled with characterizations that are uncommonly fleshed out for the genre and a few messages that are borne up by the plot rather than simply given lip service, and the voice cast are swell, particularly Chabert as our forthright heroine, Curry as the absent-minded dad, Harris as the forever sighing teen and Tom Kane as Eliza's best friend Darwin, a chimp who sounds like a harried English headmaster. Paul Simon contributes a cheerful ballad that, unlike most songs that crop up in the middle of animated features, actually fits the action and the mood (and is reasonably catchy, to boot).

Directors Jeff McGrath and Cathy Malkasian create a lot of exciting action sequences and make the Klasky-Czupo animation style fairly inviting. The look of the characters leans toward caricature rather than Disney-esque realism so that there's a pleasing balance between straightforward storytelling and drollery.

THE WILD THORNBERRYS MOVIE is aimed at bright kids who like to laugh and like animals. It's aimed at adults who fit this description, too.

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