Doug's 1st Movie

As befits its hero, this feature spin-off from TV's Doug, the Disney-ABC cartoon series, is gentle and politically correct. Doug, a mild seventh-grader (year seven, to Brits), has something of Tin-Tin about him (note the bright Hergé-inspired graphics and the designers' acute angle perspectives). But the screenplay never lets him stray far beyond the home and high school axis, playing a juvenile riff on Capra-esque concerns. Happily, though, this is not just another disguised musical: no irksome da-da-da songs, even if Mark Watters' music lacks variation and zest. These spin-offs remain animation on the cheap, and none yet - straitjacketed by fidelity to its respective series - has attained the density of image and kineticism of design of the art form's true originals.