Review of The Phantom Tollbooth

This rendering of Norton Juster's one-of-a-kind celebration of words and ideas is honorable and absolutely gorgeous - the Grinchy anachronism of the Jones style (not to mention the 50s Kodachrome anachronism of the live-action framing scenes) renders the cascading psychedelic backgrounds even more impressive for their added displacement value. And the morals are as useful as morals get. But I don't think Jones was made for morals, not on this evidence: in the big climax a monster labelled 'hate' is felled by an arrow labelled 'truth' and it has all the kinetic power of a mediocre editorial cartoon. Nor does he seem to have a grip on feature-length structure - it meanders. And since "Chuck Amuck" was fresh in my mind, I thought back to the parable of the cat and the half-grapefruit: "character is difference." There are no sharp edges to Butch Patrick's generic Everykid, nor even to the dog Tock, who is half sitcom dad; there's too much plot-chat, not enough mayhem. And is that the Billy Vaughan Chorale furnishing the insipid, forgettable songs? Nonetheless, it's cute enough and dazzling enough to be forgiven for its shortcomings.