I never really
got into the "Rocky & Bullwinkle" cartoons. As a child, I
loved "Tom & Jerry," "Droopy," "Spider-Man,
and many others, but "Rocky & Bullwinkle" never really appealed
to me. When I heard that there was gonna be a movie released of "Rocky
& Bullwinkle," I really didn't care. It looked kinda dumb, and
I didn't even have the nostalgia of having seen it as a child. Then again,
Robert De Niro was in it. That really got to me. Why would someone like
Robert De Niro wanna get involved with a movie that looked so dumb? Also,
he helped produce it! There must be something more to this movie! Well,
there definitely IS something more to this movie. It's very clever.
"The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle" is a movie that KNOWS
it's a movie. Furthermore, it knows that it's not a very good movie. The
narrator actually points out the clichés
and extreme
coincidences as the movie plays. Some of the jokes are awful, but most of
them work. The problem is, it gets to a point where the movie simply gets
too silly, and you lose interest in the story, so you're sorta just waiting
around for the next gag. The gag that follows is usually funny, though.
There's lotsa big names in the movie, many of which are cameos, so I won't
really get into who they are. As for the main cast, it's Robert De Niro
totally hamming it up as "Fearless Leader," a VERY sexy Rene Russo
as "Natasha Fatale," and a miscast Jason Alexander as "Boris
Badenov." "Rocky" is voiced by June Foray, the woman who
did the original voice for "Rocky" back in the old days. "Bullwinkle"
(as well as the movie's narrator) is voiced by Keith Scott. The original
voice person was Bill Scott, but I don't know if they're related. By the
way, Keith Scott was the narrator of the "George of the Jungle" movie that
starred Brendan Frasier, which happens to be a movie that, like "The Adventures
of Rocky and Bullwinkle," is based on characters created by Jay Ward. There's
a really cute blonde in the movie who helps out the moose and the squirrel,
and her name is Piper Perabo. She's been in a few other movies, none of
which I heard of, but her next film is a pretty big movie, a Jerry Bruckheimer
production, no less, called "Coyote Ugly."
"The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle" is directed by Des
McAnuff (stage director responsible for bringing The Who's "Tommy" to the
Broadway stage... this is his second feature film, the first was "Cousin
Bette," which I never heard of) and written by Kenneth Lonergan (one of
the writers of "Analyze
This"... tied for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2000, for "You Can
Count on Me," a film he wrote and directed). Together, they made a really
funny movie that surprised me.
I had no intention of seeing this movie, but I kept reading positive reviews,
and I was bored anyway, so I saw it. I'm glad I did. "The Adventures
of Rocky & Bullwinkle" is a very funny, very witty movie... even
if it IS too witty for it's own good.