Reworked ‘Wind’ Delivers an Ecological Message

Terry Jones’ reworking of Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 children’s classic, “The Wind in the Willows,” for the screen looks great but plays dull. Rather than zesty and engaging, it comes across as arch and tedious, too often mechanical and lifeless.

The pervasive, precious quality of the film suggests strongly that it would have been far better suited to the limitless possibilities of fantasy provided by animation than the photographic realism of live action.

One fine day timid Mole (Steve Coogan) finds his comfy, well-appointed subterranean home shaken as if by an earthquake. His pompous, idiotic friend Toad (Jones), heir to a grand English estate, has sold off its meadow, long Mole’s home, to Weasel (Anthony Sher) to satisfy his cravings to purchase these newfangled machines, automobiles. Toad not only wrecks them as soon as he drives them but now this indulgence threatens his entire holdings.

It is Weasel’s plan to erect a dog food factory on the meadow, which he has swiftly plowed over--thus the earthquake effect--and to tear down Toad’s stately home and build a plant to process anything and everything supplied by destroying the riverbank that borders Toad’s estate. But it’s the riverbank that protects animals from the “wide world” into which Mole’s friend Rat (Eric Idle) says neither he nor any of his friends, which includes Badger (Nicol Williamson), dare venture.

What we have here from Jones is an ultra-contemporary ecological message about as subtle as the giant meat grinder that is the centerpiece of Weasel’s new factory. Such bald protest doesn’t mesh well with the material’s gossamer quality because the fable’s characters, played by a swath of England’s first-rate actors, lack depth and dimension. (A couple of wan musical numbers are of little help.) James Acheson’s production and costume design is period perfection itself, full of whimsy and color, but this “Wind in the Willows” fails to work up much of a breeze.

* MPAA rating: PG, for fanciful villainy and gunplay. Times guidelines: It is suitable for all ages.

‘The Wind in the Willows’

Steve Coogan: Mole

Eric Idle: Rat

Terry Jones: Toad

Anthony Sher: Chief Weasel

A Columbia Pictures release of an Allied Filmmakers presentation of a James Goldstone production. Writer-director Terry Jones. Based on the novel by Kenneth Grahame. Producers Goldstone, Jake Eberts. Cinematographer David Tattersall. Editor Julian Doyle. Production & costume designer James Acheson. Music John Du Prez. Original music and songs by Du Prez, Jones, Andre Jacquemin and Dave Howman. Running time: 1 hour, 28 minutes.

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* In general release throughout Southern California.