Disney's `Goofy Movie' Is Dopey

voices of Bill Farmer and Jason Marsden. Directed by Kevin Lima. (G. 76 minutes. At the Alhambra, Empire and other Bay Area theaters.)

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Brutal as it may seem for a grown-up movie critic to beat up on a Disney animation film aimed at little kids, there's no denying that "A Goofy Movie" can't be a proud moment for Walt Disney Pictures.

Maybe three moments of inspired gags keep the thing going, and that's being kind. Overall, "A Goofy Movie" is an incoherent mess that jumps from one unlikely, brainless, crash-bang situation to another, with each element of a protracted father-son bonding story increasingly out of synch with the others. The film -- it runs 76 minutes but seems a lot longer -- opens today at Bay Area theaters.

G-rated and obviously aimed at a very young audience, "A Goofy Movie" nonetheless focuses on a theme of adolescence. Goofy, the famous dog (voice of Bill Farmer), is having a strained relationship with his son, Max (Jason Marsden), a high school kid who's discovering girls.

The basic question posed by the film is: How can you be cool and have Goofy for a dad?

Well, for Max it isn't easy. He has a crush on a human girl named Roxanne (Kellie Martin), but when he finally gets up enough gumption to ask her for a date, his plans are foiled by father Goofy, who decides Max would benefit from a traditional father-son fishing trip.

LIES ABOUT ROCK SHOW

Breaking his date with Roxanne, Max concocts a story about how he has to go with Dad to Los Angeles to be part of a rock show by teen idol Powerline (Tevin Campbell), a Michael Jackson type. Since all the kids will be watching the concert on pay-per-view, Max promises to wave to Roxie via television.

Goofy loads up the car, and he and his sullen teenage son head out for the open highway, where various not-quite-hilarious misadventures await. Goofy can't figure out why his kid is being such a drag, scowling and giving short answers. But after a while the two

begin to warm up to each other, and the bonding begins.

Max, meanwhile, has deceptively marked a route on the road map that leads straight to Los Angeles and the Powerline rock concert.

The story takes several detours, and features half a dozen second- rate songs sung by Farmer, Aaron Lohr, Kevin Quinn and Campbell. Support characters include Goofy's buddy and boss, Pete (Jim Cummings), Max's pal P.J. (Rob Paulsen) and Roxanne's girlfriend Stacey (Jenna Von Oy).

The only standout action and song sequence is a cogent parody of a theme park called Lester's Possum Park, where everything has a possum tie-in. Another clever moment at a highway diner shows a chubby Elvis as a background character sitting at the counter.

Out in the woods, the pair encounters Big Foot, and dad and son are imprisoned in their car, with Big Foot holding the keys.

SHORT ON INVENTION

The computer-animated film shows little in the way of artistic invention -- only a couple of complex underwater sequences and a flashy section of the rock show have a big-screen look. Otherwise, the whole enterprise is no more interesting than standard TV cartoon fare.

The film may look disjointed because various sequences were created at different animation studios -- Walt Disney Animation in Paris, or Disney operations in Sydney, Australia, and in Burbank. Toronto's Phoenix Animation studios also produced some of the work. It's almost as if these studios made different films, and then somebody spliced them together.

If you put it in a time capsule, nobody would ever believe "A Goofy Movie" and a film like "The Lion King" came from the same planet.