Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey

If the recently beleaguered Austin Humane Society has any marketing smarts at all, it'll send every volunteer it can muster along with every adoptable animal it shelters to camp out at screenings of Disney's new Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. A remake of its own 1963 version, this journey gives individual expression to its animal leads rather than voiceover narration and the result is extraordinarily affecting. With its recent successes in animated features and now, this deserving of success, live-action release, Walt Disney Pictures seems to be climbing out of the decades-deep quagmire of pedestrian pablum it had so complacently sunk into. (Remember The Happiest Millionaire ?The Ugly Dachshund? Herbie Goes Bananas ?...) So what if the studio vaults had to be raided? The updated screenplay about three very different animals who forge a deep and mutually respectful bond while trying to find their way home through the wilderness is just grand. The subtext of a newly merged family struggling to find its way “home”through an equally uncharted landscape, is crafted with a light, if somewhat predictable hand. Still, taking a cue from the best of the Disney nature films, the animals and the wilderness are the stars of the show here, with great adventure footage and spectacular scenery abounding. Writers Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast) and Caroline Thompson (Edward Scissorhands) deserve special kudos for their delightful animal “dialogue.” Wonderful interpretations by Fox, Field and Ameche add to the charm. By turns funny, impudent and touching, the animals speak a language that treads softly but carries a big message. A wise kindergarten teacher once told me that all children should be raised with a family pet, that it helped them understand the importance and responsibility of caring for a life even more dependent upon others than themselves. But if you don't have the patience for chewed shoes, muddy floors and hair-covered clothes, take your kids to see Homeward Bound instead. It'll leap up at you, lick you in the face, then curl up in your lap and stay there, soft and warm and content.