THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS (54)

Directed by: Terry Jones

Starring: Steve Coogan, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Antony Sher

The Pitch: Peace-loving Rat and Mole try to protect their beloved riverbank from the ravages of the Weasels, not helped by the antics of silly Mr. Toad.

Theo Sez: "What lies beyond the Wild Wood?" asks one little woodland creature of another ; "Beyond the Wild Wood is the Wide World," replies his friend ; "and that's something that concerns neither you nor me. So let's not refer to it again." An intermittently charming attempt to evoke a cosy world of make-believe, the vanished England of country houses and jolly picnics by the river, and the gentle drollery of its source, Kenneth Grahame's kiddie classic - as opposed, of course, to the slick, expensive concoctions painstakingly prepared for the lucrative kiddie market today. It enjoins a more casual, less pre-fabricated approach, letting the audience's imaginations do part of the work - hence of course the minimalist visual depictions of moles, rats et al. (Mole especially is a triumph of lateral thinking, suggesting not the animal's actual appearance but rather the image we have of it as timorous and myopic) ; unfortunately, it's never quite as delightful as it promises to be, overbalanced by some over-enthusiastic mugging (not least by director Jones, whose hammy shrillness calls up inevitable, if inappropriate, memories of Brian's Mother) and dampened by some nondescript songs. The zany trial scene about halfway through, featuring a cameo by John Cleese and reminding us that he (like Jones and Idle) used to be a member of Monty Python, seems to belong in a different movie - a less sweet but, it must be said, probably more memorable one.