There's Rodgers and Hammerstein's beautiful music, which is just as lovely as ever, and that's about it for this totally unnecessary cartoon adaptation of this beloved show.
First, they've all but junked the plot. Any resemblance to the original film essentially ends with a young English widow coming to Siam to become a tutor to the King's children. Thinking that 90's kids would accept a more action-oriented story, they put all sorts of TV cartoon adventure contrivances into the pot, the result satisfying neither kids nor adults.
Then there are the (voice) performances. Face it, people, Yul Brynner OWNED the part of the King, and any other in the part seems just this side of sacrilege. In the case of Martin Vindovic, it also casts a polliwog in a role that requires a full-grown shark. Miranda Richardson's Anna is just a little too arch for my taste. Julie Andrews, before her vocal crisis, would have been ideal for this assignment. The rest of the casting, alas, is on about the same level.
I'm sure that kids, and parents, too, would react a lot more favorably to the classic 1956 film, with Brynner and Deborah Kerr, than they would to this ridiculous, multi-colored mess which has the audacity to call itself "The King and I." If the families of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II ever decide to sue the producers of this odious mess, I am definitely in their corner.
First, they've all but junked the plot. Any resemblance to the original film essentially ends with a young English widow coming to Siam to become a tutor to the King's children. Thinking that 90's kids would accept a more action-oriented story, they put all sorts of TV cartoon adventure contrivances into the pot, the result satisfying neither kids nor adults.
Then there are the (voice) performances. Face it, people, Yul Brynner OWNED the part of the King, and any other in the part seems just this side of sacrilege. In the case of Martin Vindovic, it also casts a polliwog in a role that requires a full-grown shark. Miranda Richardson's Anna is just a little too arch for my taste. Julie Andrews, before her vocal crisis, would have been ideal for this assignment. The rest of the casting, alas, is on about the same level.
I'm sure that kids, and parents, too, would react a lot more favorably to the classic 1956 film, with Brynner and Deborah Kerr, than they would to this ridiculous, multi-colored mess which has the audacity to call itself "The King and I." If the families of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II ever decide to sue the producers of this odious mess, I am definitely in their corner.