Review by Louise Keller:
How refreshing it is to find a film that promotes good
food, honesty, integrity and safety! Fresh, colourful and bright,
The Wiggles Movie blends reality with fantasy seamlessly, and
elevates music to a level that is as important to the narrative
as the script. The film is basically a vehicle for the most
successful children-friendly band in Australia, The Wiggles.
Three members of the group, Anthony Field, Murray Cook and Greg
Page, are qualified pre-school teachers, who got together while
creating musical projects for the Early Childhood Education unit
at Sydney’s Macquarie University. Field, a member of the
band The Cockroaches, met its keyboard player Jeff Fatt, who
subsequently joined the group. The formula assembles a simple story line, well established distinctive characters and
toe-tapping songs with accessible lyrics and melodies that make
you want to hum along.
Like ABC’s Playschool, The Wiggles
Movie is designed to be entertainingly educational for
pre-schoolers, promoting clarity through simplicity and
uncluttered enthusiasm in word, music and action. These
characters encourage eating fresh fruit, wearing sun block,
believing in oneself, and - wait for it – they even promote
the notion that maths can be useful!!
As we weave our way through
reality into surreal fantasy, we are charmed by such characters
as Wags the Dog, Captain Feathersword and in a delightful
underwater sequence, we are privy to a routine by Henry the
Octopus and his Underwater Big Band, complete with shell
microphones and back-up vocals by catfish with glitter lipstick.
(In this scene, the Wiggles are wearing colour co-ordinated
goggles, sun-block, flippers and sunhats.)
The unbridled
enthusiasm of the cast transmits to the audience, and as if
compelled by some unknown energy, some youngsters at the preview
screening were drawn to the screen for the final party scene,
like bees to honey. How sweet it is.
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