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Review by Susan Granger
1 star out of 4
"Disney's Doug" leaps from ABC-TV's Saturday morning series
onto the big screen but, for the most part, I doubt if it's worth
paying - at a theater - for what you can get free - at home, unless
you're the parent of a pre-schooler who is desperate for
something-to-do. The 77-minute story revolves around 12 1/2 year-old
Doug Funnie (voiced by Thomas McHugh) and his blue-faced buddy Skeeter
(Fred Newman) and their search for the supposedly mythical monster of
Bluffington's Lucky Duck Lake. When they find the creature - a gentle
baby dinosaur mutant - and befriend him, naming him Herman Melville,
they also discover an environmental hazard, a pond of industrial
waste, covered-up by evil industrialist Bill Bluff (Doug Preis) who is
determined to keep his nasty secret. In addition, Doug's romantic
crush, Patti Mayonnaise (Constance Shulman), is being courted by Guy
Graham (Guy Hadley), the slick editor of the school newspaper, who
just happens to be the powerful Bluff's spy in the community. Will
Doug risk Patti's love and do the right thing? To put it tactfully,
Nickelodeon screenwriter Ken Scarborough was obviously inspired by the
plot of "E.T.," and the animation, while pleasant, is flat and
unimaginative except in one virtual-reality sequence in which
everything is exactly the same as in real life - except more
expensive. "Doug's" was originally conceived as a direct-to-video
project but diverted to theaters following the success of "The Rugrats
Movie." On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Doug's 1st Movie" is a
flimsy 3. Wait for the video.
Copyright © 1999 Susan Granger
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out of 4
