Cartoon characters Bullwinkle Moose (voice of Keith Scott, who is also the voice of the narrator) and Rocket J. Squirrel (voice of June Foray) are yanked out of their endless re-runs by perky, hopeless FBI agent Karen Sympathy (Piper Perabo) in order to combat their arch-enemies, Boris (Jason Alexander), Natasha (Rene Russo) and Fearless Leader (Robert De Niro) when THEY are brought out into the real world. Fearless Leader's maniacal plan is to turn people into pathetic zombies by hypnotizing them with "Really Bad Television" (a.k.a. RBTV).
Curious and ultimately less than satisfying movie runs hot and cold too often. I think that writer Kenneth Lonergan succeeded in reviving the kind of wit that punctuated the old 1960's animated series but unfortunately it gets pretty tiresome. He tries to make it appeal both to watchers of the original show and modern audiences but I think that there may be people out there today who will just see this as stupid. It's an odd, awkward comedy with an assortment of guest star comic cameos, an appealing performance by Perabo, and a hilarious one by De Niro. I have to say, however, that an hour and a half of Bullwinkle's voice was way too much. I can only take so much of that voice.
There is an obligatory throw-away joke that I liked: why do the villains turn into real people but Rocky and Bullwinkle remain cartoon characters?
I found that overall I didn't enjoy it a whole lot. At least it's harmless.
4/10