I remember being surprised by this the last time I watched it (alas, another review seems to have vanished), and my heart leapt as it hit its stride this time around when I remembered Jim Hawkins is voiced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt I guess I wasn’t such a fan of his the last time I watched. He along with Emma Thompson, David Hyde Pierce, Laurie Metcalf and Martin Short among others make for a great voice cast for a movie populated by more speaking characters, I noticed this time around, than you can shake a stick at.

It’s the “hand-drawn” (mostly) Disney animation feature I forget about most often, and that’s a shame, because considering how late in the game it came for them, it’s actually probably among my favourites. Going back to Gordon-Levitt, it’s right they should have someone so cool voicing this hero – I think I’ve said a number of times how badly the Disney males have sucked (and not just in my general, admittedly sucky, “most males do anyway,” way, lol) ... but second only perhaps to Tarzan, Jim Hawkins is really startlingly endearing. I love when the one song moment here comes seemingly out of nowhere triggering a flashback to Jim’s father leaving, and you just get all of his hangups thrown at you like a slap to the face, so when you see him slump against John Silver’s chest and start crying, you’re just completely with him.

To counter all of this is the feisty back and forth humour between Thompson’s sexy feline captain and Hyde Pierce as, well, as always something approximating Niles from Frasier never fails, lol. There’s the cute Morph, Michael Wincott’s spider thing, Martin Short’s B.E.N., and some gorgeous visuals. It’s a surprisingly ambitious project, one that really in the midst of Home on the Range, Brother Bear, etc, makes me once again wish they’d kept on with the handdrawn* – I noticed looking at the big list of the Animated Classics that it came out the same year as Lilo & Stitch, which clearly overshadows it … perhaps that’s why it’s so forgettable. Like I said, it’s a shame, ‘cos it’s one that makes me smile and laugh and cry everytime I see it.

* I wrote most of this review a couple of days ago now – since then I’ve been reading all kinds of amazing things about what Glen Keane is doing with Rapunzel ... there may be hope … it’s not hand drawn, but damn, finally somebody realises what computers can do …

Spoilers below … but not for this movie … if you’re seeing “Wicked” any time soon, best not read the last paragraph.

Though I was really looking forward to seeing this movie, I have to admit I didn’t really know exactly what it’d be. After a year or so of doing so, I still find myself calling myself a Neil Gaiman fan even though I’ve never read a word of his writing outside his blog, lol. This following MirrorMask, Beowulf later this month, and Coraline next year, will surely get me to the books eventually.

When it comes to this type of movie the quality range is vast from The Princess Bride via Shrek through to the abominable Ella Enchanted. I think it was Mark Kermode who preferred to compare this to Time Bandits and I can see that too. But this is really more its own creature. Ultimately it kind of defied everything I expected from what initially appeared to me to be quite a messy opening. There are a lot of different stories here that come together in the end, and though it takes its time, it’s ultimately quite amazing how the screenplay juggles them (could Jonathan Ross be gracing the Oscars next year not as a host and critic but as a nominee’s guest, perhaps?)

The magic and enchantment stuff is … well, magical. It gave me that kind of feeling like when you’re a child and you actually believe in witches and things and when you think about being turned into a toad or whatever, you actually get that sinking feeling in your stomach like it might actually happen. Now, I actually do happen to still believe in a lot of weird impossible things you’re supposed to stop believing in when you’re no longer a child … but not a lot of things give me that stomach feeling – the last thing to do so was the musical “Wicked” when Boq becomes the tin man. I got it tons here, and I was completely absorbed and unquestioning for the whole 2 hours. It’s actually the second movie this week (Once being the other) which I really could happily have watched all over again straight after the end credits.