Our world was much larger then. The forest went on forever. Curious little Crysta (Samantha Mathis) is a fairy who lives in FernGully, a rainforest in eastern Australia and has never seen a human before: fairies believe the race was made extinct by a malevolent entity called Hexxus (Tim Curry) whom mother-figure fairy Magi (Grace Zabriskie) imprisoned in a tree. But when a logging company comes near the rain forest, Crysta sees that humans do exist and accidentally shrinks one of them to fairy-size: a boy named Zak (Jonathan Ward). Zak sees the damage that the company does and helps Crysta to stop not only them, but Hexxus, back to feed off pollution after Tony (Robert Pastorelli) and Ralph (Geoffrey Blake) cut down the tree where he has spent so long. Zak falls for Crysta, whose friend Pips (Christian Slater) loves her but when the rivers and trees show signs of being poisoned Zak admits why he’s there and Hexxus starts to destroy the forest so it’s time for action and even sacrifice ... There are worlds within worlds. Adapted from Diana Young’s book by Jim Cox, this family-friendly musical has a great ecological message couched in action that while not completely jeopardy-free has a swagger and moves along quickly while also being sweet and funny. There’s a lot of humour provided in his first animation voicing role by Robin Williams, improvising his lines as Batty Koda. Perhaps the supernatural aspects de-claw the radical message at its heart, but that is certainly in the right place and there are some good songs by composer Alan Silvestri with Jimmy Webb, Thomas Dolby and Elton John. That’s Cheech and Chong as beetle brothers Stump and Root! Directed by Bill Kroyer. All the magic of creation lies within a single tiny seed
mondomovies 