Curious George

Although an average movie by prevailing standards, "Curious George" is so pedestrian a cartoon feature that its existence have very little to do with artistic impulse and everything to do with the marketability today of animated films in theaters and on home video.

There's plenty of plot, and this is, after all, the stuff of preschooler storybooks. But given the relatively earthbound world it depicts, "Curious George" oddly taxes one's sense of probability.

Natural museum proprietor Mr. Bloomsberry (voiced Dick Van Dyke) fears that mounting losses will force him to close the building and allow the property to be turned into a parking lot, which would please his shortsighted, insecure son Junior (David Cross).

But the old man instead sends loyal museum guide Ted (Will Ferrell) to Africa to locate the lost tribe of Zagawa and bring back its fabled idol for museum exhibition. (The possible political incorrectness of this fazes no one.)

Ted befriends the mischievous monkey George (noises by Frank Welker), who stows away on Ted's ship and creates problems in the States.

Moviegoers older than the target audience will recognize the voices of Drew Barrymore as the schoolteacher Maggie, Joan Plowright as uppity neighbor Miss Plushbottom and Eugene Levy as Ted's inventor-friend Clovis, but there's very little here for audiences over, say, 7 years of age.

The picture is as corny as it is harmless.

In wide release.

Illustrator Hans Augusto Reyersbach (1898-1977) and writer Margarete Elizabeth Waldstein (1906-1996), who signed their collaborations H.A. and Margaret Rey, were German Jews who married in Brazil, where both were living, in 1935. They moved to Paris and then fled to the United States.

The character of Curious George first appeared in four stories in 1941. The Reys had created an inquisitive monkey named Fifi in the 1930s, but an American publisher persuaded them to rethink the character. George emerged.

Although the character is drawn as a chimpanzee (the tails differ), he is always identified as a monkey.

In the Rey books, George's human friend is identified only as The Man With the Yellow Hat. In the movie, where he interacts with several other people, the man is called Ted.

(Sources: Judaica Library Network and Universal Pictures press notes) Additional Information:

Details

'Curious George'Rated G;