FernGully: The Last Rainforest *** (1992, voices of Jonathan Ward, Samantha Mathis, Tim Curry, Christian Slater, Robin Williams) – Classic Movie Review 2660

Director Bill Kroyer’s commendably green 1992 Australian-American fantasy environmental film is a musical mix of animation and reality. It is set within the expanses of a great fictitious Australian rain-forest, whose magical fairy inhabitants fight to save their home.

Tim Curry, Christian Slater and Robin Williams contribute their popular, distinctive voices to this film designed to appeal to the whole family. Samantha Mathis provides the voice of the fairy Crysta.

In Jim Cox’s screenplay adapting Diana Young’s original stories in her book written 15 years earlier, the cheeky fairy Crysta and a human town boy called Zak (Jonathan Ward) join forces to save FernGully from the destruction threatened by loggers and a malevolent polluting force of destruction called Hexxus (Tim Curry). Crysta has accidentally shrunk the young logger Zak to the size of a fairy, and they rally the other fairies and the animals of the rain-forest to save their home.

It is bright, uplifting, good-hearted entertainment, with jolly pop music sung by Sheena Easton (‘A Dream Worth Keeping’) and Elton John (‘Some Other World’). Alan Silvestri composes the film’s score.

In 1998 it was followed by a direct-to-video sequel, FernGully 2: The Magical Rescue, though none of the original voice cast reprised their roles.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2660

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