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Studio:Optimum Home Entertainment

Amazon.co.uk Review

Fans of the Cravendale Milk adverts will rejoice at the release of A Town Called Panic. Filled with the same storybook charm and boppety plastic toy figures--including gruff Horse and his imbecile tenants Cowboy and Indian--this is the cinematic debut of the cult Belgian series of the same name. The 'town' in question is two tumbledown buildings on either side of a picturesque gorge: Horse's own lodge and a farmhouse owned by farmer Stephen (whose main quirk is that he yells a lot, especially when happy), his wife Janine and their motley herd of livestock. The idyllic mise-en-scene is upset when a drunken birthday party for Horse results in domestic catastrophe--and only a far-fetched odyssey involving a mechanical penguin, mischievous underwater thieves and--perhaps inevitably--a voyage to the center of the Earth can restore the peace. While spectacular, these big-screen antics distract from the fluffy domestic heart of A Town Called Panic: Horse's star-crossed love affair with a local piano teacher, Stephen's not-quite-to-scale breakfasts and Cowboy and Indian's infantile squabbles evoke the innocence of Toy Story, while the leafy stop-motion animation captures some of the lyrical poetry of The Magic Roundabout and Oliver Postgate's Bagpuss. --Leo Batchelor

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