The Magic Roundabout (film)

The Magic Roundabout
British theatrical release poster
French	Pollux – Le manège enchanté
Directed by	Jean Duval Frank Passingham Dave Borthwick
Screenplay by	Paul Bassett Davies Tad Safran[a] Raolf Sanoussi[b] Stephane Sanoussi[b]
Based on	Characters by Serge Danot Martine Danot
Produced by	Laurent Rodon Pascal Rodon Claude Gorsky
Starring	Tom Baker Jim Broadbent Lee Evans Joanna Lumley Ian McKellen Kylie Minogue Bill Nighy Robbie Williams Ray Winstone
Edited by	Mathieu Morfin
Music by	Mark Thomas
Production companies	Action Synthese UK Film Council Pathé Renn Productions Pricel France 2 Cinéma Canal+ Les Films Action SPZ Entertainment bolexbrothers limited
Distributed by	Pathé Distribution
Release dates	2 February 2005 (2005-02-02) (France) 11 February 2005 (2005-02-11) (United Kingdom)
Running time	82 minutes
Countries	United Kingdom France
Languages	English French
Budget	$20 million[1]
Box office	$26.7 million[2]

The Magic Roundabout (also known as Sprung! The Magic Roundabout; French: Pollux – Le manège enchanté) is a 2005 animated adventure fantasy comedy film based on the television series of the same name.^[3] 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.

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.

In 2000, Andy Leighton started working as a managing director at bolexbrothers. He watched bolexbrothers' commercials, and upon learning that the studio's financial income was drying up, he decided to start building a feature film slate.^[4][5] Associate producer Bruce Higham had a link with Kodak and was friends with Nick Collinson, who worked for Canal+. Pathé were one of the French big hitters in terms of film distribution and financing. Collinson mentioned this to Higham, who in turn mentioned it to bolexbrothers. Director Pascal Rodon of Action Synthese in Marseille, France and producer Laurent Rodon of Les Films Action in Paris, France had acquired the rights through Serge Danot's wife Martine to produce a film adaptation of The Magic Roundabout. The Rodon brothers had not done any films before and needed someone to do the storyboards and script, so they turned to director and editor Dave Borthwick, actor and writer Paul Bassett Davies and Leighton.^[6][5] The show was a huge hit in France and the United Kingdom, so they were looking for a UK partner, which led to Leighton having meetings with Pathé UK. Leighton got in touch with Trevor Horn's wife Jill Sinclair and told her that bolexbrothers was making the film, at which she joined in as an executive producer.^[5] With more than 140 people contributing, the development started in May 2000 and lasted until December 2001. Around the same time, Action Synthese decided to wait until they had developed all the characters along with the animation tests before they managed to get Pathé to finance the film production.^[7] Pascal Rodon described Pathé's financing of the production as, "A perfect fit. They are the biggest cinema owner in Europe with about 60 percent of French cinemas, and have interests in the UK."^[8]

During 2002, the film was in pre-production until the actual production commenced and lasted for 33 months.^[7] According to Leighton, the film had a slightly darker tone than the show; bolexbrothers wanted to take the action away from the Magic Garden, with their story starting there, but then having the characters go on a globe-trotting adventure around the world. Raoff and Stephane Sanoussi made an attempt to write a story for the film. Because they did not have any real experience of writing extended, long-form narratives, the first script that they came up with was a collection of the usual 3-5-minute episode dynamic of the show, which did not have sense of three act-structure or a kind of sensibility that would see things in terms of a 60-70-minute narrative arc. Davies, bolexbrothers' "writer-in-residence", was hired and brought in to help develop the narrative. When he first went over to Paris for a week, he and the Sanoussi brothers got along well. At one point, they were asked to create a backstory for the film. Davies began to contribute his ideas, and because doing long-form narratives were not the Sanoussis' thing, someone said, "Oh, let's create an origin story for the character of Zebedee." So Davies and the Sanoussis created two characters for the film, Zeebad and Soldier Sam. Nobody took the decision to ask if they were going to make the film for children or acknowledge that it would appeal to adults like the show. This was because a lot of animated films in the 2000s, such as DreamWorks Pictures' Shrek and Disney and Pixar's Monsters, Inc., attempted to hit two demographics to include things that would appeal to both adults and children. However, the producers at Pathé UK, including Tad Safran, asked Davie to write a draft of the script, which resulted in him having a crisis of conscience since the original script was, in his words, "the Sanoussis' baby". Davies wrote three drafts, removing the narrative structure of the script before other people were brought in to polish it off. The Sanoussi brothers disliked this because it was not their vision. The film adaption was done by French producer Jean-Pierre Carasso. Davies stated, "Essentially... it ended up that Pathé UK and all the other producers who ended up on board with this thing had to do a certain amount of mollifying to various parties, and the best way they came up with to mollify them was to give people a credit. And gradually, over the course of a year, they became disillusioned, they became hostile towards me. Probably with reason, because... as a kind of representative of everything that was coming in and taking their project away from them. And that's the result when suddenly the budget goes into the millions and millions. People get their own stuff taken away from them."^[5]

Borthwick was hired to oversee the storyboards and scripts, but went through a personal crisis during the pre-production and ended up being sidelined. At a certain point, the producers at Pathé UK lost confidence in him, so Borthwick brought in his student Frank Passingham, who took over.^[5][9] Les Films Action also hired Jean Duval to create and supervise their graphic charter for the development of future Magic Roundabout productions. At the end of 2003, Laurent Rodon asked Duval to participate in the final storyboard of the film. Duval went to Marseille, where he met Pascal Rodon. In 2004, the Rodon brothers offered him the position of co-director.^[10][5]

Unlike the show, which was presented with stop-motion animation, the film was mainly animated in computer-generated animation, which Pascal Rodon was very much into. Whereas British animators and studios such as bolexbrothers specialised in stop-motion or traditional animation, Paris, France were, in Leighton's words, "kind of the leaders [of computer animation]", since they had about three or four universities that were teaching it, being more advanced than the UK was. Based in Bristol, bolexbrothers had a good reputation for their awards that they had won at film festivals with their short films, commercials and their previous feature film, The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb.^[5] According to Frédéric Bonometti, the director of animation, the animators chose to animate the characters with key-framing instead of motion capture as they did not want the animation to be too close to reality, and they use real movements as inspiration when animating the characters. They first started using 3D Studio MAX, although it was used to develop the characters, but the interface was not fast enough for the animators as they struggled to animate. Instead, they chose to switch to Softimage XSI which was much easier for the animators in working conditions and saving time in development.^[11]

When animating the hair for the characters, mainly for Dougal because of his fur, the animators used three techniques. They first tried the envelope tool which was simple and effective, then they used a second technique, which is the Hairs Dynamic in XSI. The animators used this technique for Dylan's tuffs of hair, but abandoned it mostly due to it causing technical problems. The third technique that the animators used was a mesh that served as a deformation cage for the characters' hair. This was used for Florence's hair and Coral's pigtails. Because Florence's skirt and Coral's dress are the only clothes that required animation, the animators did not use a clothing simulator, instead using a series of bones in rotation around the skirt which deformed it via envelope tool and automatically calculated when the dress collided with the legs. For special effects such as explosions, smoke and clouds, the animators used simple geometrical shapes as placeholders and reference points in space and time for the effect specialists.^[11] As the animation was being made and rendered in Softimage XSI on the hardware provided by Hewlett-Packard, Avid Technology participated with Softimage to help with the animation and rendering of Dougal's fur. Les Films Action relied on Avid during the animation and rendering process.^[8]

Casting was done by John and Ros Hubbard and Leighton.^[5] The French voices were provided by Henri Salvador, Vanessa Paradis, Michel Galabru, Eddy Mitchell, Gérard Jugnot, Dany Boon, Élie Semoun and Valérie Lemercier. The English voice cast included Robbie Williams, Kylie Minogue, Ian McKellen, Joanna Lumley, Bill Nighy, Tom Baker, Jim Broadbent, Ray Winstone, Lee Evans, Ediz Mahmut, Daniella Loftus and Jimmy Hibbert. Because they all knew of the show (except McKellen), they were extremely motivated and enthusiastic. As a result, everything went well; for example, Boon loved Brian so much that he systematically wanted to do additional takes in order to explore the facets of the character's personality. Williams, for whom it was the first experience in this field, did the same and, in Duval's words, "seemed to have fun like a kid". Duval's most enriching experience was the recording sessions with McKellen, for his availability, professionalism, humility and kindness. Unfortunately, due to his busy schedule and travelling between London and France, Duval had to delegate some of the recording sessions with the actors and was not able to work with Paradis.^[10]

Trevor Horn was involved in the beginning of the film's production as a producer, but in the end, the film became a vehicle for a lot of "bubblegum pop records" to which Horn owned the publishing rights. According to Leighton, "My big disappointment was they couldn't get the music together. I think because it landed again in Trevor Horn's lap but he was still producing other things."^[5]

The film's soundtrack was composed by Mark Thomas, James L. Venable and John M. Davis. The songs in the film include:^[12]

• "The Magic Roundabout" by Andrea Remanda and Goldust Productions, performed by Kylie Minogue, Andrea Remanda and Scaramanga X, with additional vocals by Steve Anderson
• "Magic by Pilot*
• "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks, performed by Bill Nighy and Catherine Bott**
• "Lean Mean Fighting Machine" by Andrea Remanda and Goldust Productions, performed by Andrea Remanda, Scaramanga X and R. Driscoll
• "Spinning" by Andrea Remanda and Goldust Productions, performed by Andrea Remanda and Scaramanga X
• "Simply Wonderful" by Andrea Remanda and Goldust Productions, performed by Andrea Remanda and Scaramanga X
• "Mr. Blue Sky" by the Electric Light Orchestra, with additional vocals by Catherine Bott
• "Toreador Song" by Georges Bizet, performed by Catherine Bott, Arthur Dick and Mark Thomas**
• "The What-a-Snails Waltz" by Mark Thomas
• "Believe Yourself" by Andrea Remanda and Goldust Productions, performed by Andrea Remanda and Scaramanga X
• "Bust This Joint" by Andrea Remanda and Goldust Productions, performed by Andrea Remanda, Scaramanga X and R. Driscoll
• "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss*
• "I Love To Boogie" by T. Rex*
• "Sugar, Sugar" by The Archies*
• "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg*

(*) Denotes licensed songs. (**) Denotes arrangement of song.

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.^[13] Joe Utichi of FilmFocus wrote: "For all its undeniable promise, this take on The Magic Roundabout is just plain disastrous in its execution."^[14] 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".^[15] 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.^[16] 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".^[17]

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), Bill Hader (Soldier Sam), 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;^[18] the original script was heavily revised via the addition of numerous references to popular culture, as well as the occasional fart joke.^[19] Hartman would later claim in 2017 during the Weinstein scandal that most of his input was rewritten and rerecorded by Harvey Weinstein, and that the final film "I had maybe 3% to do with".^[20]

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.

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".^[21][22] 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.^[23]

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."^[24] Christy Lemire of Associated Press called it "the laziest, most disheartening animated children's film ever made."^[24] 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".^[25]

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.^[26] 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."^[27]

Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.^[28]

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.^[31]

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).^[32] 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,^[33] 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).^{[citation needed]}

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.^[34] However, Action Synthese closed their doors in 2013, effectively ending any chances of a sequel being made.

• Official website (The Magic Roundabout)
• Official website (Doogal)
• The Magic Roundabout on Pathé International
• The Magic Roundabout at IMDb
• The Magic Roundabout at IMDb
• The Magic Roundabout at the TCM Movie Database
• The Magic Roundabout at Rotten Tomatoes
• Doogal at Rotten Tomatoes
• Doogal at Box Office Mojo