SPOILERS In the 1970s, the parents of future main screen English actress Emma Thompson, discovered a little French cartoon which they brought across the English Channel. Called 'The Magic Roundabout' this animation was a favourite of many people over the years it was shown. Entertaining and light on plot with audiences constantly joking about characters being on drugs, it became a mainstay of British children's entertainment. As a result of it's success, if you skip forward to 2005 and low and behold, we finally have a film version. Featuring major British actors plus two famous singers, this modern day version is a CGI extravaganza which suffers from one fatal flaw. It's awful. Weak and unimaginative, it contains multiple film, music and drug references without ever actually making us laugh. It could be argued that children will love it, and that's entirely possible, but there are just so many lines involved which children wouldn't understand that questions have to be raised about the chosen market audience. All in all, 'The Magic Roundabout' is a turgid affair.

Dougal the Dog (Robbie Williams) is attempting to steal candy when he accidentally releases the evil ZeeBad (Tom Baker). Turning the world to ice, ZeeBad requires three crystals to turn the Sun to ice. With Dougal and friends also after the crystals however, this soon becomes a race against time.

It's hard to know where to start when chastising this abomination of modern cinema. Whether you choose to condemn the mediocre unimaginative vocal acting (only Bill Nighy as Dylan deserves any sort of acceptable for his role here),the terrible jokes which are hideously unfunny, or the horrendously bad soundtrack (rescued only briefly by 'Mr Blue Sky') there is enough to be able to criticise for hours.

The film is just so twee too. In cartoons aimed at young children, you do have a degree of this sweet natured garbage, but 'The Magic Roundabout' just surpasses all acceptable levels. It's cheap, it's nasty and it really is so sickening that you find yourself wanting to vomit for the full eighty minutes.

Drug references are consistent too. In the original series, the characters were not actually meant to be on drugs. These constant speculations came afterwards and were forever denied by the English writers. In the film though, it's like the writers know about this gossip and intentionally put in references. Whether it's Dylan wanting to save the grass or Dougal's sugar addiction, the presence of drugs never seem particularly far away. These links, whilst in a way slightly impressive in a tribute sort of way, are far too overplayed and would pass over anyones head who had no idea about the original series. Ironically despite the constant references, nobody ever really shows signs of being high (except the forever stoned Dylan of course). Whilst this is obviously a good thing since this is a children's film, it does serve as an interesting dilemma. In the 1970s when the characters were all drugged up, they were fun to watch, now after the Millennium, they've cleaned up their act and are remarkably boring. If anything, this film serves as the ultimate advert for drug usage. You certainly wish they'd take something to make them more entertaining.

Broadcast in the 1970s, the original 'Magic Roundabout' was a cornerstone of children's entertainment. It stands there proudly to this day. Updated to the 2000s though, the entire premise fails to hold water in the modern world. Awkward and unfunny, badly written and badly acted, this film is really not worth your effort. A horrible waste of eighty minutes, it should never have been made and it is an abomination of the genre of animation. Avoid.

After Dougal (Williams) accidentally releases evil Zeebad (Tom Baker) from his prison, he and his pals Ermintrude (Lumley),Brian (Broadbent) and Dylan (Nighy) embark on a quest to find three magic diamonds before Zeebad uses them to encase the world in ice. More than 40 years on from its first broadcast, the children's stop-frame animated series The Magic Roundabout is something of a TV legend - at one point it was the second most-watched programme after the news. Originally made in France, it was bought by the BBC for broadcast here and Eric Thompson (dad of Emma) supplied new storylines and narration, delivering a healthy dose of dry wit to teatime viewing in tales that featured a seemingly stoned rabbit called Dylan, a shaggy, sugar-addict dog named Dougal, the highly sprung, vast-'tached magician Zebedee, Ermintrude the singing cow and Brian the smart-but-slow snail.

Grown-up fans delighted in the series' supposed drug-culture references and political satire, but (and let's be honest) were as enchanted by its cuteness as the children at which it was aimed. So a 21st century movie update of classic kiddies' telly is a brilliant idea, as those nostalgic for the show can not only visit the Magic Roundabout once again, but introduce their own children to it, too.

Of course, this version is far slicker and attempts a bit of Hollywood-style action-adventure grandstanding, but it works both as a trip down memory lane and as an entertaining movie for (very) young children. The characters are now CGI - albeit rather below Pixar standard - but still look much like the Ermintrude, Dougal and Brian of old (Florence is a bit scary though, with teeny-weeny creepy eyes). The writers, meanwhile, have kept in some of the adult humour; at one point, Dylan wisely advises Dougal to lay off the sugar, as once you have one iced bun it's hard not to eat the whole box. Plus, they've thrown in some '70s musical moments (Dylan and Ermintrude's rendition of The Kinks' You Really Got Me is superb) and have enticingly given the characters very famous voices - it's strangely appropriate that Zebedee shares the same vocal chords as Gandalf.

While this may not be a Shrek-like experience guaranteed to deliver a pan-demographic smash - teens certainly won't be impressed by the simple, videogame-ish plot - it is, at least, spot-on for Brit tots too young for Harry Potter and too discerning for Tweenies.

I admit, I did not like this movie first time, but when I saw it today for the first time in three years I was surprised. While bearing little resemblance to the 1960s show, which is just timeless, this is a decent and colourful contemporary tribute.

There are flaws still with the film. The plot is very thin, and sometimes is made up of disconnected scenes. The script has some knowing lines but there are parts where the jokes only come across as average. Also it is a little too short so while the characters still maintain their simple charm, they weren't developed properly.

That said there are a vast majority of things that compensate. For one thing, the visuals are absolutely striking and colourful. Then there is the brilliant soundtrack, that is sunny and really pleasant to the ears. But what made the movie was the film was the voice cast, with fun supporting turns from Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy and Lee Evans(who I have found annoying in the past). Tom Baker is deliciously malevolent as ZeeBad and Ian McKellan is exceptional as always. But Robbie Williams's cheeky and charming performance as Doogal is the nicest surprise.

All in all, has its failings but it is decent and colourful. It is a shame really it was bastardised by its god awful American counterpart Doogal, which is little more than lame pop culture references and redeemed only by the quality of its animation and the in general talented voice cast(but Jon Stewart was completely wrong for ZeeBad) though they did deserve much better. 7/10 for Magic Roundabout. Bethany Cox