Over The Hedge

Whoever thought up this title should be chained to a blancmange and wobbled for a week.

The film continues DreamWorks' run of post-Shrek wannabees. There is nothing wrong with it and nothing that stretches the imagination. It is conventional within the confines of an animated storyboard, with made-to-measure characters and songs that float past your consciousness without touching the sides.

RJ (voiced by Bruce Willis) is a racoon - for European viewers that means a bigger squirrel. He's a chancer, who gets on the wrong side of a hibernating bear (Nick Nolte on vocals), after attempting to steal his stash of junk food, which means he has to recover, by foul means or fouler, an equal load of goodies, or be chomped when the big brute wakes up.

RJ comes across a naive group of foragers, led by a timid tortoise (Garry Shandling), and sees these uncool rural babywipes as potential helpmates in his nosh heist endevour.

After their winter sleepover, the foragers discover a HUGE barrier in the middle of their forest. They don't know what it is and so name it Steve (best joke in the film). It is, in fact, a hedge, beyond which lies a gastronomic paradise called Suburbia.

The movie tries hard to make a difference. Having set up the scenario, no one knows how best to play it. What makes Pixar so great is storyline, storyline, storyline. What gets bogged down in Hedge is storyline, storyline, storyline.

There is a Cruella De Vil character, who hates everything furry and rodentesque, and a fat verminator, with sophisticated traps and killing machines. Both are too idiotic to be a threat and so the animals play havoc, running rings round them.

The tension dissipates after the PC police have checked out the script for any infringement of the good taste laws, or cruelty to CGI creatures. The film feels safe, like a strawberry milkshake with whipped cream topping - predictable, nostalgic and sugar sweet.