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Yet another cartoon to make the leap from small screen to big (this time successfully). "Recess: School's Out" springs from the ultra-popular "Recess", TV show about the six ten-year-olds who control the playground during the break or, if you like, recess.
In his bouncy, big-screen debut, ringleader TJ - a plucky, adventurous, ever-optimistic kid - finds nowhere to focus his abundant energy when his friends desert him by disappearing to summer camp; until, that is, he spots a lantern-jawed lout guarding the gates of the supposedly empty school. Inside, there is a weird, green light-show going on inside, and a giant laser gun pointing towards the Moon. He arm-twists his sniffy sister into picking up his friends from their assorted camps, so TJ, his chubby chum, the specky girl, the dweeb, and the other two are set to unravel the mystery. At the centre of it is a rogue teacher, Benedict (voice of James Woods), who - with his army of scientists, security guards, and ninjas, is hell-bent on ending recess for good. In particular, he wants to obliterate the best recess of all, the summer break. The last thing, in other words, that any kid wants.
And what fun this is. Given that the animation is, in Disney terms, very cheap (ie undetailed and flat), the film works because it is peppered with sharp, smart, and sometimes wonderfully odd comic moments, in which director Chuck Sheetz never indulges himself, moving on to the next one at breakneck speed. Since he directed numerous episodes of "The Simpsons" and "The Critic", it is unsurprising that many scenes come really packed and that the dialogue often oozes flavour. Best of all is a sequence which, wrapped in appropriately groovy colours, shoots back to 1968 when teacher-idealism was all, and when Muriel - now a crabby, curmudgeonly old bat of a teacher - gushingly confessed "I couldn't love a man who didn't love recess".
"Recess: School's Out" is released in the UK on Friday 27th July. Visit the .
