The times
I would visit home on break from the University of Washington I
would likely find my little sister and/or brother immersed in
Nickelodeon’s popular Rugrats television series. I never
got it. I thought the program was annoying and shrill. While I
am sure the morals it was trying to part to my siblings were
just peachy, I couldn’t get past the abundance of baby talk and
potty humor.
These
feelings towards the long-running animated hit were why I
avoided the two Rugrats movies like the plague. It is
also why I dreaded the screening of The Wild Thornberrys
Movie, another theatrical version of a Nickelodeon cartoon.
Adding to my dread? The same team behind Rugrats created
the Thornberrys, and the thought of spending 90-minutes
with similarly discordant characters sent chills up my spine.
Color me
surprised, then, for The Wild Thornberrys Movie is one of
the more pleasant discoveries of 2002.
Like most
cartoons aimed at the 12-and-under set, Thornberrys is
both amazingly simple and amusingly complex. Concerning the
adventures of the loving Thornberry family; world-traveling
documentary filmmakers Nigel and Marianne (Tim Curry and Jodi
Carlisle), teenage daughter Debbie (Danielle Harris), 12-year
old Eliza (Lacey Chabert) and adopted wild child Donnie (Flea);
their first movie takes the clan to the African Serengeti to
record and document a miraculous occurrence. Once every hundred
years during a perfect solar eclipse, Native legend states that
thousands of elephants burst from the safety of the wild forests
to stare upwards at the sky, and Nigel and Marianne want to
document the event for posterity.
It is
little Eliza who is the focal point of the movie. You see, a
mystical African Shaman has given her the ability to talk to
animals due to her kind, caring and selfless nature. This allows
her to pal around with elephant herds, playfully frolic with
cheetah cubs and have a best friend named Darwin (Tom Kaye) who
just happens to be a chimpanzee. There is only one rule that the
Shaman tells her she must never break or her ability to
communicate with the four-legged set will be lost forever: tell
no one, not even her animal loving parents.
One day,
while cavorting with the cheetah cubs under the watchful gaze of
their mother Akela (Alfre Woodard), Eliza witnesses the capture
of one of her friends by poachers. She makes a valiant attempt
to save the club, almost at the loss of her own life. Her
quick-thinking parents, however, save Eliza and all seems lost
as the evildoers fly away with the kidnapped cub in their
helicopter.
Worried by
their daughter’s seemingly reckless – even with her good
intentions – behavior, they decide to take the advice of Eliza’s
grandmother Cordelia (Lynn Redgrave) and send the child to
London for boarding school. Under the watchful gaze of
headmistress Mrs. Fairgood (Brenda Blethyn), the elder
Thornberry is sure the precocious Eliza won’t be able to stray
into trouble far from the dangers of the wild.
But young
Eliza doesn’t know how to survive away from her animal friends
and in the stodgy world of boarding school. Even with the
mischievous Darwin hiding in her luggage and traveling with her
to London, she’s miserable feeling guilty for not saving the
young cub and longs to return to Africa. But all is not lost.
The Shaman who gifted Eliza her wondrous powers informs her that
the cheetah is still alive and held by the nefarious poachers.
What more, this same duo is planning on slaughtering the
elephant herd for their precious ivory during the solar eclipse.
Will Eliza
be able to escape Mrs. Fairgood and get out of London? Can she
save the cheetah cub and stop the poachers from massacring the
elephants? Is this the job for a 12-year old or should she risk
losing her powers by enlisting the help of her parents? For that
matter, will Darwin in drag pass the muster – and security
screenings – at the airport?
The Wild
Thornberry Movie
is an extremely charming family film for most of its brisk
running time. Young Eliza is an extremely enchanting creation,
her inquisitiveness and gentle heart certain to win over even
the most Scrooge-ish. She’s a great role model, perfectly voiced
by Chabert. It is easy to see why her and the show have been
such a hit on Nickelodeon.
Don’t get
me wrong; Thornberrys has some annoying traits. Like many
of the cartoons on the cable channel there is an extreme
reliance upon bathroom humor, especially when it comes to
wild-child Donnie. He’s annoying and not very funny, even with a
wedgie dance, and Flea’s vocal work consists mostly of shrieks,
snorts and other undecipherable noises. I’m sure the little kids
eat it up, but it’s just not my cup of tea.
I also
found myself nodding off during the whole boarding school
episode. One can only watch a chimp making a fool of himself and
wreck his surroundings for so long before it gets tiresome.
After a grand opening in Africa, Thornberry’s comes very
close to stalling out completely when it gets to London.
Luckily, the filmmakers understand where their strengths – and
those of their characters – really lie and this whole episode is
mercifully brief.
But there
is so much to cheer about here that these faults really don’t
end up mattering too much. The animation is fun and fluid, the
human character’s stork-like necks making them seem more the
animals than the menagerie of actual woodland creatures
permeating the film. And the music is surprisingly strong for a
children’s movie and features an absolutely charming song
written and performed by Paul Simon that is surprisingly
heartbreaking.
The vocal
work is quite good. Curry and Carlisle are real parents, loving
their children deeply but confused as to the best ways to bring
them up in a strange world. I was sure Harris and her valley
girl character was going to drive me batty, but darned if she
just didn’t slowly start to win me over, her stirring
relationship with an African bushman a striking highpoint to the
film. Also quite good are Redgrave, Woodard, and Rupert Everett
and Marisa Tomei, playing two mysterious characters that may
have motives far different than those Eliza suspects.
But more
than that, it is the message of The Wild Thornberry Movie
that is most refreshing. Family empowerment stories are nothing
new, but to find one that uses restraint and nuance to get its
point across is beyond refreshing. It is that rare family film
that refuses to pander to its audience – whether they are six or
sixty-six – where the big themes are concerned. For that, all
the poop jokes and wedgie dances can be more than forgiven.
