The first five minutes of Curious George capture the pure unadulterated joy of being a little monkey. It's the kind of spontaneous boisterousness that you lose at about the age of six. If you're lucky, you might have also had a Jack Johnson song following your every move, too.

Unfortunately, just like an album of Jack Johnson songs, Curious George runs into the danger of repeating itself. As long as it remains playful, it has a lightness to it that is infectious. But since this has to have a ninety minute narrative, the screenplay by Ken Kaufman raises stakes that George just would never care about.

The good news is that it isn't a terrible expansion that betrays everything a beloved character stands for. Curious George is at best episodic, and though it has a thread tying it all together, the movie lingers over some key moments that you might remember from looking at the pictures when you were small.

Stripped of his physicality, Will Ferrell ostensibly stars as Ted, better known to everyone as The Man in the Yellow Hat. Every kid knows this is really about George, but to make Ted competitive, he turns out to be somewhat of a dork, a far cry from the firm but fair father figure in Margaret and H.A. Rey's original stories.

Ted's so much of a dork that he misses the attentions of the pretty young teacher (Drew Barrymore) that keeps bringing her class back to listen to him lecture week after week. Apparently, she's also the only person attending the museum he lectures for; business is so down that his boss (Dick Van Dyke) is seriously considering letting his son (David Cross) take over and turn it into a parking lot.

Such veniality never gets too threatening, and though the idea of commercial considerations might be too deep for kids, it's defused by Cross' constantly playing with toy cars as he imagines his riches. And boy, does the character look like David Cross, a twisted comedian who still manages to disguise himself well in kids' movies.

To save the museum, Ted goes looking for a lost idol. Instead of encountering something like Kong, he meets George, who adopts him and later carries him to the top of the Empire State Building.

Actually, Kaufman and director Matthew O'Callaghan find a way to do a quick nod to King Kong, and it doesn't seem too forced, though kids shouldn't try to duplicate George's method at home. They might be tempted, though, because one thing the creative team leaves out is much of a sense of consequence for George. Sure, he gets lonely and sad sometimes, but there's nothing like that broken arm for being too curious, nor does he snort ether…holy crap, kids' entertainment has sure changed over the decades.

The film relies on weaker kid movie tropes, such as an out of nowhere inventor/handyman voiced by Eugene Levy, to provide instant solutions that are also instantly undercut in order to keep the plot moving. They also provide for long opportunities for George's mischief.

It may skimp on story sense in places, but Curious George doesn't skimp on style. The animation is fluid, and the art direction often does a good job of approximating the original illustrations. Disney should take a look at this and see that 2D animation is far from dead. Though the team here does use CG for some shots, it's largely traditional hand-drawn animation. Better yet, it's well-done hand-drawn animation.

Smaller kids will be riveted. Purposely, producer Ron Howard did not want to make a film that worked on two levels, so the jokes are aimed squarely at the young. If you can get in touch with your inner five-year-old, you might give over to the magic of it. But that's admittedly a tall order, because you'll get distracted by people like Ferrell, Cross and Barrymore and wonder just when exactly they're going to do something meant to amuse just you.

Don't ask Curious George to show you the monkey. But you might want to take a small kid (teens will be waaaaay too cool for this), but be prepared that at about the one hour mark, no matter how much they like it, kids will get restless. A little bit of George goes a longer way than the producers think.

Rating:

Derek McCaw