The Magic Roundabout (film)

The Magic Roundabout (also known as Sprung! The Magic Roundabout; Pollux – Le manège enchanté) is a 2005 animated comedy adventure fantasy film based on the television series of the same name. Unlike the show, which was presented with stop-motion animation, the film utilizes computer-generated animation. The story sees a group of unlikely heroes who go on a quest to stop a reawakened villain, who intends on freezing the world, from retrieving a set of powerful diamonds.

It was released in France with a French dub on 2 February 2005, and an English-language version was released two weeks later in the United Kingdom on 11 February. In the United States, the film was released as Doogal on 24 February 2006 with a new English cast, dub, and script. Only Ian McKellen's performance was retained, while Kylie Minogue redubbed her role from the UK release. Whilst the UK and French dub received mixed reviews, the US dub received overwhelmingly negative reviews.

Plot
Zebedee, a jack-in-the-box-like wizard, has a nightmare about his evil counterpart, Zeebad. Dougal the well-meaning cheeky, slacker dog places a nail in the road to pop a sweet cart's tyre, planning to nibble on the sweets himself. After the driver goes for help, Dougal accidentally crashes the cart into the Magic Roundabout at the village. Zeebad emerges from the roof and flies away, followed by a Foot Guard animatronic thrown off the roundabout as it freezes over, trapping repairman Mr Rusty, Dougal's young owner Florence, and two other children named Coral and Basil within an icy cell.

Horrified, Dougal, Brian the cynical snail, Ermintrude the opera-singing cow and Dylan the hippie rabbit, call upon Zebedee for help. He explains that the roundabout was a mystical prison for Zeebad. With it damaged, Zeebad is free to work his magic on the world again as he once did before by starting the Ice Age. The only way to stop Zeebad from freezing the world is by retrieving three enchanted diamonds (one of which is supposed to be hidden on the roundabout, while the other two are hidden at separate locations far beyond the village). Slotting the diamonds onto the roundabout will re-imprison Zeebad and reverse his magic, but if Zeebad retrieves them first, he will use them to freeze the Sun. Zebedee dispatches Dougal and his friends onboard Train, a magic locomotive, to accomplish this mission. Meanwhile, Zeebad crash lands after escaping the roundabout, and animates the Foot Guard animatronic, Soldier Sam, to help him find the diamonds. That night after the gang makes camp in the mountains, Dougal, while being left outside as a guard dog, strays from the campsite and is abducted by Zeebad. A moose leads the gang to Zeebad's lair where Ermintrude rescues Dougal from his prison. Zebedee arrives to duel Zeebad but is defeated with Zeebad freezing him and collapsing the cliff on which he stands, causing him to fall into the abyss.

Mourning for Zebedee, Dougal and his friends embark to recover the diamonds respectively from a lava-bordered volcano and an ancient temple filled with evil skeleton guards, but Zeebad takes both diamonds, leaving the only hope of stopping Zeebad by getting back to the roundabout before Zeebad does. The gang onboard Train are pursued by Zeebad in a drill-like locomotive, but they crash into a buffer stop, sending them flying before crash-landing into the snow, injuring Train in the process, forcing them to leave Train behind and return to the village on foot through the snowy barren wasteland the world is now freezing into. Zeebad, after having abandoned Sam to die wounded in the snow, beats the gang to the now-frozen village, but cannot find the third diamond. Sam arrives on the moose, having realised that his true duty is to guard the roundabout from Zeebad, and attempts to battle Zeebad but is quickly defeated. Learning that Sam was part of the roundabout, Zeebad discovers that the third diamond is hidden inside Sam, and removes it from him, ending Sam's life.

Zeebad begins to freeze the Sun with all three diamonds. However, the gang finally reach the village, reclaim the diamonds, and slot them into their places on the roundabout until the third diamond remains. Though Zeebad steals it back and seemingly secures his victory, the timely arrival of a healed Train knocks the diamond out of Zeebad's reach, giving Dougal the chance to place it in the roundabout's final slot and simultaneously redeem himself. Zeebad is then re-imprisoned as the world, along with the Sun, is thawed back to normal. Zebedee is revealed to have survived and re-joins his friends.

As those who were trapped on the roundabout are freed, a comatose Florence is revived by Dougal. As everyone goes for a ride on the restored roundabout, they discover that it is still non-functional because Sam is lifeless. Zebedee restores Sam, reverting him to his inanimate form and returning him on the roundabout which functions once again. Dougal now realises the true value of his friends and the good qualities of selflessness, courage, and humility.

Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the UK version of the film received an aggregate score of 60% based on five reviews (three positive and two negative) with an average score of 5.14/10. Joe Utichi of FilmFocus wrote: "For all its undeniable promise, this take on The Magic Roundabout is just plain disastrous in its execution." Stella Papamichael of BBC Online stated that "the story isn't inherently funny, relevant, or convincing. Essentially it's too 'dumbed down', tragically bypassing the cheeky 60s subtext of the original TV show and sapping its nostalgia value". Time Out wrote: "The story’s clearly aimed at the Teletubbies fraternity who would never question a scenario as ridiculous as this ... granted, the level of computer animation isn’t exactly state-of-the-art, but it’s certainly florid enough to captivate undemanding five-year-olds ... Robbie Williams and Bill Nighy’s stoned rabbit help transform what should have been an unendurable fiasco into an, albeit forgettable, treat for toddlers. And toddlers only. William Thomas of Empire wrote: "this version is far slicker and attempts a bit of Hollywood-style action-adventure grandstanding, but it works both as a trip down memory lane and as an entertaining movie for (very) young children".

Doogal (United States)


As reported by William H. Macy, Harvey Weinstein saw The Magic Roundabout and decided to produce an American localized version. On 24 February 2006, the film was released in the United States as Doogal and was distributed by the Weinstein Company. The majority of the British cast's voice work was dubbed by American celebrities such as Chevy Chase (Train), Jimmy Fallon (Dylan), Whoopi Goldberg (Ermintrude), Macy (Brian), and Jon Stewart (Zeebad). Child actor Daniel Tay plays the titular character in the United States dub. The U.S. screenplay adaptation was handled by Butch Hartman; the original script was heavily revised via the addition of numerous references to popular culture, as well as the occasional fart joke. Hartman would later claim that most of his input was rewritten and rerecorded, and that the final film "I had maybe 3% to do with".

Only two original voices remained, those of Kylie Minogue and Ian McKellen. Minogue, however, re-voiced her own lines with an American accent. The United States version also features Kevin Smith as the voice of Moose, who was originally a non-speaking character, and adds narration by Judi Dench.

Reception
Unlike its UK dub version, the film received overwhelmingly negative reviews by film critics and audiences. On Rotten Tomatoes, it received an aggregate score of 8% based on 49 reviews. The consensus reads: "Overloaded with pop culture references, but lacking in compelling characters and plot, Doogal is too simple-minded even for the kiddies". It has a score of 23 out of 100 ("generally unfavorable") on Metacritic, and an F rating from Entertainment Weekly writing that "very young children should be angry... where is it written that 4-year-olds don't deserve a good story, decent characters, and a modicum of coherence?". It was placed number five on Ebert & Roeper's Worst of 2006. Screen Rant ranked it number 1 on its list of the twelve worst animated movies ever made.

Roger Moore of Orlando Sentinel described it as "easily the worst kid's movie since Spy Kids 3-D, a confusing blur of a magical quest based on an ancient British stop-motion animation TV show." Christy Lemire of Associated Press called it "the laziest, most disheartening animated children's film ever made." Randy Miller of DVD Talk says that: "Doogal is, after all, one of the worst excuses for a children's film during this or any year ... Filled to the brim with pop culture references and other such gags that'll be even less funny a few years from now, it's like Shrek without the occasional bit of charm and surprise".

Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune described the film as "Eighty-five minutes you'll never get back." and also put it on his Worst of 2006 list. Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "The key frame animation, based on three-dimensional models, is rudimentary, with none of the characters proving visually arresting." Ned Martel of The New York Times wrote, "In Doogal setting the world right again involves a badly paced quest for three diamonds, assorted jokes that don't land, and a daringly incoherent climactic confrontation."

Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.

Home media
The Magic Roundabout was released on DVD and VHS in the UK on 18 July 2005 by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (under Pathé). The DVD release included the option to play along with the film via a "Magical Mysteries Quiz Game" in which, at certain intervals, the viewer would answer questions relating to what they have seen; Tom Baker would provide narration during the game. Two questions had to be answered correctly at a time before the film could continue, with an aim to see how many questions the viewer can get right first time. The game could be played under two difficulties; "Starter" to get the viewer started, and "Smarter" which was slightly more difficult. The film was later re-released on a 2-disc Special Edition DVD with extra bonus material that includes an inside look at the history of the original 1964 series, two making-of featurettes, classic episodes of the original series in both English and French, design gallery, cast and crew biographies, theatrical trailer and a couple TV spots.

In 2006, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released a 3-movie DVD pack that contains The Magic Roundabout, Chicken Run and Robots.

The American version of the film, Doogal, was released on a double-sided DVD on 16 May 2006 by The Weinstein Company containing both the fullscreen and widescreen versions on each side.

In Canada, the country's distributor, Alliance Atlantis, released both the American version of the film nationally along with the original version dubbed in its European French language to DVD at the same time in Quebec (despite the country using a completely different French accent there). Alliance Atlantis' version of the US DVD has the same artwork that was used in the DVD release of the original English version of the film.

In 2008, The Magic Roundabout was released on Blu-ray exclusively in France featuring both the French and original English versions. Despite being sourced from a 2K English master, selecting the French audio track (or using the angle option) would show the credits in French sourced in its original DVD release, hence the low quality during it.

A couple years later, the Blu-ray was re-released as part of Fox Pathé Europa's "Sélection Blu-VIP" service where it contains a DVD copy of the film (in a plastic sleeve) as well as a booklet containing a catalog of Blu-ray releases from 20th Century Fox, Pathé, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and EuropaCorp along with a code on the back of it which can be used on the now-defunct 'Le Club BLU-VIP' website to earn points for merchandise for films released at the time (à la Disney Movie Rewards).

Cancelled sequel
Before the film was released, a sequel to The Magic Roundabout was announced to be in development, with the voice cast expected to reprise their roles. However, Action Synthese closed their doors in 2013, effectively ending any chances of a sequel being made.