Opens June 30, 2000

This moose should be noosed.

Dimensionally flat in every way, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle is such a misadventure and comic dud that it couldn't be further off from creator Jay Ward's gentle, iconoclastic humor than if, say, Sylvester Stallone had stepped in to play Rocky. Tribeca Prods., with producers Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal, has never been known for its sense of humor in its presentations, and this reputation remains intact with this misguided nostalgia trek.

Admittedly, Rocky and Bullwinkle brings back all sorts of great laying-on-the-living-room-floor TV memories for us decrepit Baby Boomers. Yet, even though we were tots, we watched Rocky and Bullwinkle not because it was a typical cartoon but, rather, that layered within its goofiness was a spry sensibility and gentle sense of social satire. Rocky and Bullwinkle lofted a lot of sly digs against authority figures and institutions and we kids, under the dull thumb of schoolmarm mentalities, could certainly dig that.

All this was courtesy of Bullwinkle creator Jay Ward's kindly subversive sense of humor. While the late Jay Ward has an imprint on this movie, it is only in the gag-joke form of having a ward in a hospital named after him, "J Ward." Unfortunately, that's about as clever as this trek gets. It's hard to imagine who might appreciate this R and B venture: Younger viewers won't know or care who the characters are, and in this post Roger Rabbit age, no one is going to be impressed with the workmanlike blend of live action and animation here. A summer movie with less appeal to anyone is not easy to fathom.

The adventure here involves our intrepid moose and squirrel who resurface in the present, after having had their series cancelled in 1964. They've been brought back because they're the only ones who can save us from destruction and bad TV. Unfortunately for the filmmakers, bad TV, especially in the wake of the recent Millionaire/Survivor abominations has outstretched in awfulness the very bad shows the filmmakers try to parody. Also, anyone who doesn't waste an hour everyday reading the entertainment trades will not be interested in the in-jokes involving TV series and entertainment industry nonsense. Egad, they've even got a joke about the FCC crammed in, as if anyone, anywhere understood enough about the FCC to appreciate a joke about it.

On and on with the cutesy references to classic movies. Even the greenhorn critic at the press screening went from being flattered that he knew some of these insider references to a slumped-over satiation from their boring bombardment.

While this adventure does involve Rocky and Bullwinkle, the tone of the adventure is more in tune with the Katzenjammer-style of early cartoons: It's coarse, loud and decidedly unsubtle. As such, it's tonally against the sensibilities of the great old series it attempts to tribute. Indeed that may be the odd irony here, if a creator with a distinctive personal voice creates a mainstream success, it inextricably follows that someone else will pay homage to that voice by unwittingly hammering it into the ground. Hats off to the filmmakers for having the taste to appreciate Jay Ward's creative voice, thumbs down to them for their confidence in thinking they could duplicate it.

Knowing Jay Ward's kind wisdom, one suspects that he would likely only smile with knowing acceptance if he had to endure this tributary, thickheaded muddle. It would probably not surprise him, and he'd channel that discontent to some sort of transcendent comic reaction, indeed, like his creation of such affable, shrewdly attuned characters to begin with. Bullwinkle and pals were his spokespersons in the real world.

While this Universal release features the two cartoon characters in a real world with real people, one gets the feeling at certain times that we're on the Universal tour here, viewing the rear-projection display. Such is the non-seamless nature of the melding of animation with live action.

Indicative of the dunderheaded humor here is Robert De Niro's parody and homage to himself in Taxi Driver. With a neo-Travis Bickle hairdo, De Niro chomps up the scenery as he flails about in some sort of Heinrich Himmler-ish performance as a vile TV mogul. At least, this is true to the spirit of another TV show, albeit the worst period of Saturday Night Live.