`The Nutcracker Prince' Is Musically Insulting -- A Depressing Throwback To Cheap Cartoons

X 1/2 ``The Nutcracker Prince,'' feature-length animated fantasy directed by Paul Schibli, from a script by Patricia Watson. Crossroads, Gateway, Grand Cinemas Alderwood, Kirkland Parkplace, Metro, Renton Village Cinemas. ``G'' - General audiences.

You may be forgiven if visions of ``Fantasia'' dance through your head while you're watching this visually impoverished, musically insulting new Canadian cartoon.

Its creators have all but asked for the comparison by using Tchaikovsky's music and releasing the movie at the same time as the popular reissue of the Disney classic. It's a depressing throwback to such cheap-looking cartoons as ``Rainbow Brite'' and ``Heidi's Song,'' which became a glut on the market in the mid-1980s.

While Disney and his animators had an on-screen love affair with Tchaikovsky's music, finding ever-more expressive ways of matching ``The Nutcracker'' to evocative images of dancing mushrooms and exotic fish, this Canadian team uses the score as all-purpose background accompaniment to a succession of dreary drawings.

``Fantasia'' is, of course, an unrepeatable phenomenon from the golden age of animation. Yet even by today's standards, ``The Nutcracker Prince'' looks undernourished.

Watch, for instance, the convincing anatomical detail and movement in Disney's animation of outback animals in the current ``The Rescuers Down Under.'' The people who made ``The Nutcracker Prince'' can barely manage a shot of a house cat descending a flight of stairs; the creature looks like a paper cut-out being dragged around by wires.

The director, Paul Schibli, and the executive producer, Sheldon Wiseman, previously worked together on the popular Canadian cartoon series, ``The Raccoons.'' Television animators they are, and television animators they remain.

They've also made a big mistake in trying to emphasize the human characters in this fantasy. In the words of Wiseman, ``we wanted to approach `The Nutcracker' in a contemporary way, which meant focusing on the drama of the story, and creating dialogue for characters whose parts had previously only been narrated.'' The script by Patricia Watson succeeds only in dragging its fantasy creatures down to earth.

The extra dialogue does, however, give the soundtrack actors a chance to provide the movie with its only signs of life. Megan Follows, the talented Canadian star of ``Anne of Green Gables,'' plays the heroine, Clara, who finds the nutcracker prince (Kiefer Sutherland) under her Christmas tree, and Phyllis Diller, Mike MacDonald and Peter O'Toole ham it up in roles that owe something to the comedy-relief mice in Disney's ``Cinderella.''

Unfortunately, Follows' flat rendition of one song, ``Save This Dance,'' written by Kevin Gillis and Jack Lenz, is as grating as the number itself. It's one of several ill-advised additions to the score, which ends with a truly annoying reworking of Tchaikovsky's themes under the final credits.