The cinematic fantasy world of dumb beasts which turn out to have more humanity than human beings would fill a small-sized ark.

Ever since Disney's 1957 weepie Old Yeller, audiences must have shed an ocean of sentimental tears over kindly killer whales, ornery orangutangs, slobbering Hooches with hearts of gold, and rambunctious Beethovens.

Choosing a bird or beast to star in a family feature film must be a difficult task for the animal equivalent of central casting in Hollywood. Nevertheless they've found one, a green-feathered parrot called Paulie.

The old showbiz adage, never work with children or animals, doesn't apply in Paulie. The star of this new movie, unlike Monty Python's famed Norwegian Blue, manifestly has not shuffled off its mortal coil; it can do far more than repeat words, er parrot-fashion; this bird can think, reason, answer back: in fact it's got more cognitive ability than most middle-managers. Feather-brained it is not.

Apart from a slightly tedious patch in the middle of the picture, Paulie is an otherwise engaging and sometimes amusing tale of a parrot's picaresque adventures as it strives to return to its original owner, five-year-old Marie who gets along quite well despite her speech impediment.

Her parents, however, see it as a problem and seek remedial help which fails. Marie eventually learns to enunciate words thanks to Paulie. But her parents, like most grown-ups, are blind to the notion that one can only learn what one loves. They don't listen to her when she tells them that Paulie can really talk.

Trouble is Paulie is scared of heights and is reluctant to fly. One night little Marie decides to help her friend and climbs on to her window ledge. The plot demands that she nearly has an accident, which she does, and that her unperceptive parents blame the bird and get rid of it, which they do.

Paulie's adventures begin in earnest when he lands up in a New York pawn-broker's shop. He passes through the hands of a number of people in his search for Marie, and his journey takes him East to West. Eventually he lands up in the basement of an unscrupulous animal-experimenting institute in LA where he meets another East-to-West migrant, Misha - a Russian refugee also seeking a place in the sun.

This is not a cartoon film. The characters are played by real actors. Paulie himself beak-syncs brilliantly and performs a number of other tricks convincingly - such as bursting into choruses of Tom Jones' hit What's New Pussycat? What a pollyglot.

Whether kids will find Paulie a compelling alternative to fast action adventures packed with hi-tech special effects is another matter. But if they've seen Godzilla and you are looking for something else to distract them for a couple of hours on yet another wet summer afternoon, then this might fit the bill.

Jim Greenhalf

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.