At The Movies . . . `The Pagemaster' Reduces Great Children's Literature To Level Of A Video Game

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XX "The Pagemaster," with Macaulay Culkin, Christopher Lloyd, Ed Begley Jr., Mel Harris and the voices of Whoopi Goldberg, Patrick Stewart, Leonard Nimoy and Frank Welker. Directed by Joe Johnston (live-action sequences) and Maurice Hunt (animation sequences), from a script by David Casci, David Kirschner and Ernie Contreras. Broadway Market, Crossroads, Everett, Factoria, Grand Cinemas Alderwood, Metro, Parkway Plaza, Seatac Mall Cinemas. "G" - General audiences.

It's been a tough decade for non-Disney animated features, which have so far failed to make a dent in the box-office records established by "Aladdin," "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Little Mermaid."

While such dull pretenders to the throne as "Tom and Jerry - The Movie," Don Bluth's "Thumbelina" and Steven Spielberg's "We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story" may have deserved to fail, even the good non-Disney stuff is flopping.

Last weekend, Richard Rich's derivative but mostly delightful "Swan Princess" got swamped by the reissue of Disney's "The Lion King," which had been pulled out of release two months ago. Even though it's already grossed $367 million since June and would appear to have saturated the market, "King" has sold twice as many tickets as the brand-new "Princess" since Friday.

This cannot be encouraging news to Twentieth Century Fox, which is throwing another costly animated film, "The Pagemaster," into the

holiday market today. Budgeted at $35 million, the movie opens and closes with live-action sequences, but about 60 of its 75 minutes were animated by Hanna-Barbera.

Almost a remake of "The NeverEnding Story," it's about a timid 10-year-old boy (Macaulay Culkin) whose parents (Mel Harris, Ed Begley Jr.) want him to take some chances with his life. When he stumbles into a library during a storm, a lonely librarian (Christopher Lloyd) tries to interest him in checking out a book, and eventually the boy enters the fantasy world of great children's literature.

In the cartoon sequences, the animated Culkin meets up with Long John Silver (who looks and sounds a lot like Robert Newton), Captain Ahab (who resembles Gregory Peck not at all) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (voice by Leonard Nimoy). The giant from "Jack and the Beanstalk," the hound of the Baskervilles, the red queen from "Alice in Wonderland" and the little people from "Gulliver's Travels" also make brief appearances.

Unfortunately, they're more like video-game caricatures than flesh-and-blood creatures taken from great books. Their stories are reduced to snippets, capsule versions that probably don't mean a thing to anyone who isn't familiar with the originals. And anyone who has read Herman Melville or Jonathan Swift or Robert Louis Stevenson will only be turned off by the movie's patronizing tone.

For all its juvenile touches, "The NeverEnding Story" was really about the joy of reading, of losing oneself in a book to the point of forgetting everything else. It also benefited from a potent psychological undercurrent: the young hero's attempts to use his literary experiences to deal with his mother's death.

"The Pagemaster" may have started out as a sincere attempt to interest children in reading, but it's not likely to win many converts. Lloyd, hammy as ever, makes the librarian seem like a pathetic eccentric who hasn't seen a customer in weeks. It doesn't help that the cartoon sequences take quite literally his division of children's literature into three genres.

Patrick Stewart provides the voice for Adventure. Whoopi Goldberg represents Fantasy. Frank Welker is Horror. This allows for many desperate attempts at whimsy. "You don't see me pretending to be Horror," says Adventure. "Where's Horror?" wonders Culkin. "Wasn't he with you?" says Fantasy.

For much of the film, the animated Culkin just wants to find an exit: "Do I click my heels or something?" It's not difficult to sympathize.

Trekkers may be forgiven if their minds wander to thoughts of Picard finally getting together with Spock on the big screen, if only as the voices of cartoon characters.

In production for more than three years, "The Pagemaster" was an exceptionally complicated production. Live-action scenes were shot in September 1992. Culkin's voice has since changed, and he's clearly been maturing in the movies he's made during the past couple of years: "The Good Son," "The Nutcracker," "Getting Even With Dad" and "Richie Rich," which opens here Dec. 21.

Looking and sounding more like the boy from the "Home Alone" movies than his recent semi-grown-up self, this younger Mac holds the film together during his non-animated sequences, but they're much too brief.

As a cartoon character, Culkin also has his moments, including an ingenious escape from a dragon's belly and one welcome sight gag: he struggles to lift "Atlas Shrugged" from his back. Alas, "The Pagemaster" doesn't have enough of them.