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11.06.10 # News # One Comment
The Wind In The Willows, the cherished children’s classic, is heading to the big screen for the first time once again!
To be released in 2012, the movie version of Kenneth Grahame’s book will combine live action and animatronics, with the effects overseen by Weta. Presumably they’re going for the kind of effects blend Spike Jonze achieved with his version of Where the Wild Things Are. The story concerns the misadventures of a mole, a rat and a badger who have to deal with an unruly toad who lives in a massive house and breaks laws driving around like a maniac. He’s kind of like a woodland Tony Stark. Will the new movie be a faithful adaptation or a modern update of the source material, like this year’s Alice In Wonderland? Time will tell.
Source: AV Club
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Like other articles the image used to illustrate this, is from the best animated version by London’s TVC studios,(famed for ‘Yellow Submarine’, ‘The Snow Man’, ‘When The Wind Blows’ and ‘Beatrix Potter’, amongst others). Superbly voiced by Alan Bennet, Michael Pail, Michael Gambon, Vanessa Redgrave and Rik Mayall, (giving his best performance to date, and surprisingly subtle at that), as Toad.
As for the new version, like Terry Jones’ otherwise admirable live action version, they seem to be meddling with the plot, by shoe horning some unwelcome ‘right onness ‘ into it.
Britain is modestly beautiful like the descriptions the book evokes, so the use of New Zealand, will no doubt look nice and bright, but misses the point, no doubt chosen for financial reasons as the UK Government is not the most welcoming regarding film tax breaks. People in suits, (with animatronic features and tails, or whiskers), will look clumsy or creepy at best. Hopefully the voices will be British accents and not American. Ian McKellan may be predictably,(but wrongly), cast as Badger perhaps?
Visually a ‘Fantasic Mr Fox’ look might have suited better.
‘Poop Poop!’