Recess: School's Out

Summer Lovin'

The stars of Disney's One Saturday Morning animated series Recess make the leap from the small screen to the big screen in Recess: School's Out, a moderately entertaining feature that rehashes that age old conflict, kids versus adults, with the stakes being the ultimate recess: summer vacation.

The plot is set in motion on the last day of school, when the leader of the Recess gang T.J. (voice of Disney Channel TV movie staple Andrew Lawrence) is unexpectedly abandoned by his pals, who are all shipped off to various trendy summer camps. Bored and lonely, he stumbles across strange doings at the abandoned Third Street Elementary. T.J. enlists the aid of his arch-nemesis, Principal Prickly (Dabney Coleman, who has made a career of such blustery cranks), but this leads to a mysterious disappearance that forces T.J. into action. He must recruit his school mates for this pint-size mission: impossible.

The man behind all these mysterious occurrences is the school's former principal, Dr. Philliam Benedict, voiced by James Woods in the film's most obvious attempt at keeping the parents entertained. As with his deliciously wicked turn as Hades in Hercules, Woods puts a sly spin on even his most benign dialogue. Simply, he knows he's the bad guy and revels in that fact. His nefarious scheme, complete with an army of thugs and ninjas, is worthy of Ernst Stavro Blofeld: to eliminate summer vacation, he will do anything. And if that means he has to realign the moon to eliminate summer all together, so be it. Needless to say, it's up to the kids to stop him.

I have only caught a few episodes of the Recess TV show (why do they have to put Saturday morning cartoons on Saturday morning?), but from what I have seen, it isn't any different then any other school-based sitcom, from Saved by the Bell to Boy Meets World. First you have the racially diverse group of mop-tops, teaming with clichés: the nerd, the tomboy, the fat kid. Pit them against clueless teachers and principals. Sophomoric hilarity ensues. This scenario goes at least as far back as Welcome Back, Kotter, and it isn't any fresher now, especially as a full-length feature.

While most of the gags are aimed at those who would find "the principal has a saggy butt" a knee-slapper, there are a few good laughs tossed in for the adult's sake. In fact, not to sound sarcastic, but the high-point of the film for me was the end: during the end credits we are treated to a trippy, psychedelic music video of flower child anthem "Green Tambourine" with lead vocals by Robert Goulet (who played similar duty for the Toy Story 2 finale, with his Las Vegas-y version of "You've Got a Friend in Me".) The soundtrack is also pumped full of boomer-friendly tunes, including "Dancing in the Streets" and "Let the Sunshine In", as well as the over-used "Born to Be Wild" (if I have to hear that song used to illustrate the next time a character decides to hit the road and be rebellious, I will go wild).

Most television animated productions mask their lower budgets and need for mass production with an obviously forced stylization. Thus we have Rugrats' squigglely goofiness, Beavis & Butthead's scratchy minimalism and, with Recess, we get what can best be called lumpy blandness (take one look at schoolmarm harridan Ms. Finster and you'll see what I mean). This is easily expectable within the confines of television, but as the full-length versions of all these programs can attest, it visually suffers when forced into expanded feature film format.

Toon Talk Grade: C
Running Time: 82 minutes
In theaters now

Toon Talk Trivia:
In addition to James Woods, Disney fans will recognize the voices of the following in Recess: School's Out:

• Charles Kimbrough plays a TV newscaster, similar to his best know role, stiff anchorman Jim Dial on the long-running sitcom Murphy Brown. He provided the voice of Victor in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
• The folks at Disney must like R. Lee Ermey's militaristic voice: Here he voices an army officer, just like his Sarge, the leader of the Green Army Men, in the Toy Story films.
• Another Hunchback alumnus, Tony Jay was the evil Judge Frollo in that film, as well as Monsieur D'Arque in Beauty and the Beast. Here he voices a scientist.

-- Originally posted March 5, 2001