Doogal

I'm always looking for a cute movie for my 6 year old son and the characters in the Doogal movie trailer looked adorable. Not to mention a cast of Chevy Chase, Jon Stewart and Whoopi Goldberg, how could one go wrong. Boy was I disappointed. It was terrible. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie this bad. Not only did the characters lack any personality whatsoever, the plot relied solely on corny one-liners referencing countless movies and television shows in every scene. Most of which, children didn't understand and parents just didn't find funny. The theater was empty and those that decided to stay until the end hardly laughed. Do yourself a favor and pass this movie up. Don't even buy the DVD.

After coming fresh off of a pretty good movie with Hoodwinked, something fell totally apart when it came to this movie. This is the first movie in a LONG time where I was constantly checking my watch to see if it was almost over. And at a short 85 minutes, that is pretty sad.

Let me say a couple good things about the movie. The pre-movie cartoon was really funny. The animation kept the cute, and simplistic CGI style found in Hoodwinked.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of bad parts to the movie. The thing that bothered me the most were the number of puns and pop references. I think it is good when they are used, but they went overboard. They didn't always even fit in with the situation. I would have to say, they were almost forced. Then the references would be above most of the 'target' audience. Another problem is that I don't care much for 'fart' jokes. Unfortunately, about the only time I really heard any laughter from the kids in the audience was when a flatulent character was on screen. Even the story was pretty weak.

It was a shame considering that this movie had such a great cast. But I would have to recommend avoiding this movie unless there is absolutely nothing left to watch that you can take a kid to.

I've found that attending movies with my kids is almost always great fun. Movies that I wouldn't be caught dead watching otherwise are somehow not so bad when the kids are there. In one case, a movie I had seen by myself and been completely bored was actually a lot of my fun watching with my 7 yr old son later.

Doogal has no redeeming value whatsoever. The celebrity voices provide zero added value - Jon Stewart is at best, OK. The rest are definite negatives which I have never seen before. The plot is transparently thin, the characters are extremely weak, and not a single laugh out loud in the entire theater, although it was almost empty on the second day.

Not even a DVD rental. KEEP AWAY!

I have been seeing films in theaters for over 50 years and this is only the second time I actually walked out during the movie. I am a big fan of quality animated films, from the early Disney up to the more recent Ice Age, Hoodwinked, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, etc., and the wonderful Miyazaki films. I thought, with this cast it has to be good. I mean it has Dame Judy Dench, William H. Macy, Whoopie Goldberg. All actors I greatly admire. Unfortunately, the film has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. There is no humor, adventure, interesting characters or anything else that would keep one interested. I kept saying to myself, it has to get better, but it never did. I finally had enough and walked out. I was not the only one to do so.

AAARGH!!! Nobody told me that this U.S. version had been re-recorded WITH AN American CAST!!!!! Lines were definitely changed. The American cast always said "Carousel" instead of "Roundabout". I think that some references to "sugar" were changed to "candy" or "caramels".

The actors kept from the UK version of this movie (released under the title "THE MAGIC ROUNDABOUT") were Judi Dench as the narrator, Ian McKellen as Zebedee and Kylie Minogue as Florence. All the other roles were substituted with the voices of American actors.

The kid who speaks Doogal (why did they change the spelling of this from "Dougal"?) is high pitched and annoying. Substituting the voice of Whoopi Goldberg for the voice of Joanna Lumley (Ermintrude the cow) was a bit strange. But what I thought was unforgivable was substituting the voice of Jon Stewart ("The Daily Show") for that of Tom Baker ("Doctor Who" (and many other roles)). This was the role of "Zeebad" the villainous enemy of Zebedee. There's even a scene where Zeebad and Zebedee have a wizardly duel, like Saruman and Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. But instead of Tom Baker facing Ian McKellen, it's Jon "The Daily Show" Stewart!!! Find a way to see the version with the British cast. Skip the one with the American cast.

Karl