And as far as she is concerned, no preparation is enough. His shrieking, overprotective mother (Shoshana Sperling) makes him wear his yellow rain slicker even when it is not raining and keeps reminding him he must not do anything unless fully prepared. Passepartout (Cory Doran) is a nerdy, bespectacled little marmoset who dreams of being a world explorer like his hero, Juan Frog de Leon. In this film, Philéas (Rob Tinkler) is a frog (it sounds like he calls himself Philéas Frog at one point, ha ha) who is a surfer and a pickpocket and con artist. He is accompanied by his just-hired French valet, named Passepartout (in French, the word means “go everywhere,” related to “passport”). In the book, it is the wealthy and very precise Englishman Philéas Fogg who makes the bet that he can circle the world in 80 days.
#80 days around the world movie#
And thus, as I watched, I tried to amuse myself, since the movie was failing in that task, by asking myself a series of questions: Why take the premise and characters from this story and jettison the best parts, including one of the all-time best twist endings, substituting new and very dull details? Why make a movie about a trip around the world and spend most of it in nondescript fictional locations? Why is the journey of a note in a bottle shown with more wit and visual flair than the journey of the characters trying to win the bet? And most of all, why is this movie so screechy?
This French/Belgian animated re-telling has animal characters once again trying to win a bet by circumnavigating the planet in just 80 days, but other than that there is very little connection to Verne’s story. His novel has been adapted more than a dozen times, including Mike Todd’s Best Picture Oscar winner, the Razzie-nominated version with Steve Coogan and Jackie Chan, and a 2021 television series starring David Tennant. It clocks in at under 90 minutes, but at times I felt it was taking me 80 days to get to the end of this latest adaptation of Jules Verne’s story of a race around the globe.
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