A great new twist on all of the old stuff.

Rating: 9/10 (18 May 2001)

This movie is a wonderful blend of fantasy, comedy, adult humor, and childish whimsy. A blatantly off-the-wall film, it earns chuckles and outright laughs with a greater frequency than any movie I have seen in quite a while, and it is always s joy to hear a theater full of people laugh along with you. Unlike most movies, and especially comedies, the vast majority of the good parts, as well as many of the crucial plot points and twists, were left out of the trailer. Though it was not hard to figure out what was going to happen in the end, the details of the road they take to get there are completely unpredictable and delightfully surprising. The visuals were beautiful, but after the first few moments you forget them unless you consciously pay attention, which is how all visuals and special effects should be. If you were spending the whole movie oohing and aahing, you would miss all of the funny parts and maybe take this movie seriously, which you are obviously not supposed to do. The wonderful visual effects are so believable that you can forget that you are, in essence, watching a cartoon, while still maintaining a fantastical quality throughout. Another great point about this movie was that the jokes that may not be suitable for children are so subtle done that the vast majority of the youngsters will not even notice that they are not getting a joke. This is truly a great family film that you can take kids to, or see by yourself. Yes, there is a lot of "gross-out" humor, but hopefully you are not going to see this movie with visions of Shakespeare running through your head. Go to see this movie, and before you do you should change the channel every time a preview comes on, the minimal previews cannot last for long.