Review of Curious George (2006) by Markb. — 28 Apr 2006

Frank Welker is one of the all-time great names in recent animation history: virtually everyone, adult and child, who loves TV and movie cartoons has enjoyed his work, and yet almost no one knows who he is! He's a prodigiously talented and versatile voice artist who has worked for most of the big animation firms; he took over some of Mel Blanc's most famous vocal characterizations after Blanc's death, but Welker's specialty is animal noises--moos, meows, chirps, barks, roars and other miscellaneous gutteral utterances from creatures who aren't as articulate or fluent in the English language as Bugs Bunny is.

True to form, he voices the title character in Curious George, the film version of H. A. Rey's beloved children's books centering on an inquisitive little monkey, and yet you have to wait until more than halfway through the closing credits to see his name appear even once, even though he plays the LEAD ROLE! Not that I'm complaining too much about the actual celebrity voices involved here: Will Ferrell is admirably restrained as George's best friend, pet human and father figure, The Man With The Yellow Hat; Drew Barrymore is thoroughly enchanting as Yellow's would-be romantic interest (or as close as you get to one in a G-rated cartoon); and Dick Van Dyke, David Cross and Joan Plowright contribute nicely modulated supporting bits.

Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment seemed to take forever to get this produced, perhaps in part because the Rey estate saw just what an offensive distortion Howard and his company made out of Dr.

Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and (I'd like to think) they decided to make sure that Opie and the suits remained faithful to the innocence of the George books. The wait was worth it: in an era when such lumps of prefabricated pop-culture junk as Madagascar and Hoodwinked are accepted by far too many as quality family entertainment, this is a real breath of fresh air--a kids' movie that really is designed, written and pitched for them, with just a few sly references to A League of Their Own and the like to get a smile out of Mom and Dad.

Not that adults should be bored by it at all (in fact, this could be a great date movie!); the stylishly puffy, billowing 2D layouts and backgrounds are a lot of fun to look at and seem completely effortless even though we know how much hard work went into them.

The movie is effectively fast-paced without ever being manic, and--appropriately for wee ones and even some of us jaded Big Ones--so goodhearted that it even allows its nominal comic villain a partially happy ending.

The only two real complaints I have about Curious George are the completely inappropriate product placements (even if they're for fruits rather than potato chips or candy bars, and little George has to eat SOMETHING).

..and the fact that Frank Welker really, really needs to hire himself a good lawyer, if not a more aggressive agent.