REVIEWED - VALIANTAppropiately for an entertainment emanating from the revived Ealing Studios, this tale of a brave pigeon's attempts to win the second World War appears almost entirely untouched by modernity. The Germans - here leather-clad birds of prey - are portrayed in the sort of beastly terms Noël Coward once ironically discouraged.
The plucky British, insofar as one can tell from examining their plumage, are all resolutely caucasian. We hear neither modern pop music nor blue language and, most surprising of all, we catch not the briefest glimpse of an American (eagle?).
True, Valiant is animated using these new computer thingumies, but, for all the resemblance it has to the work of Pixar, it could have been put together using an abacus and Charles Babbage's Difference Engine.
Ewan McGregor, the vocal lead of last week's CG extravaganza Robots, gives breath to the undersized titular hero, a pigeon with the soul of Norman Wisdom. Inspired by the screening of a patriotic newsreel, Valiant heads to London where, after stopping off in Trafalgar Square to make friends with an avian geezer (Ricky Gervais, very funny), he enlists in the Royal Homing Pigeon Service. Before long he and his comrades find themselves dispatched behind enemy lines to retrieve a vital message from the French resistance, all of whom are mice and one of whom - a girl - is called Charles de Girl.
Some children, confused by the lack of contemporary references and disappointed by the comparatively rudimentary animation, may find Valiant a bit of a bore. But, stubbornly sticking with the iconography of Victor and Hotspur comics, it exhibits real integrity. Forty-somethings nostalgic for nostalgia will probably find it bearable enough.
