To call Walt Disney's "Cheetah" a "throwback" is to understate. "Time warp" might be more accurate.
An overly sentimental "family film" that brings to mind the old Disney "True-Life Adventures," "Cheetah" is a very old-fashioned movie. And that's not meant as a compliment.
The story, intended as a variation on "Born Free," is slow-moving and yet lets the gorgeous Kenya scenery fly by all too quickly; the acting is arch, which is surprising since the lead players have done much better elsewhere; and the sentiment is so thick only young children will likely appreciate it — if they stay awake.
Of course, it's all too easy to rip apart a film this wooden and miscalculated, so let's look at the positive aspects first.
"Cheetah" is rated G, a rarity among live-action pictures, and contains nothing parents might construe as offensive. The story, about two city kids from Pasadena, Calif., who find themselves spending six months in Kenya with their scientist parents, is well intentioned. And the moral values presented, in general, are admirable.
Plotwise, the kids befriend a cheetah cub, raise it as their own and then realize they need to un-domesticate it so it can learn to hunt and be free. But the cat is captured by poachers who have a gambling scheme to race it against greyhounds. They then plan to skin it.
So the kids, along with a young goatherder friend, head off into the wild so they can find the cheetah and set it free.
Young audiences like movies where the kids are portrayed as brave and heroic and solve the problems their bumbling parents don't understand. But parents may take a different view. It's one thing to show the parents as comical, as in "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." It's something else to show them as ineffectual in a drama.
Actually, the main problem here is that so much plot is left unexplored the relationship between the kids and the cat is left to voice-over narration and the bonding between them is never convincing.
I also was disturbed by what I perceived as a rather condescending tone toward the goat herder and his family.
As the L.A. youngsters, Keith Coogan and Lucy Deakins are surprisingly stiff. Deakins was so wonderful as the sensitive next-door neighbor in "The Boy Who Could Fly" and Coogan was so witty in "Cousins" that it's hard to believe they are so stiff here. Young Collin Mothupi as the goat herder fares much better.
And even the technical side is well below Disney standards occasionally, as during early scenes with the cub that are so grainy they don't match the reaction scenes with the kids.
On the whole, you could do worse, but sending the kids to "Cheetah" might be more ideal than taking them.