MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Rockers’ an Engaging Short

Screening with “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid” (opening citywide today) is “Off His Rockers,” an engaging new short from Walt Disney Animation Florida that deftly blends traditional cel animation with computer graphics.

A neglected rocking horse launches a last-ditch campaign to win back the affection of the little boy who used to love him--before the kid got hooked on video games. Prying the rockers from his hoofs, the horse fights for the attention of the junior couch potato. All ends happily when imagination triumphs over electronic gadgetry.

Director Barry Cook and his crew infuse the hobbyhorse with such recognizable emotions that he quickly wins the audience’s affection. The use of computer graphics enables the artists to reproduce the texture of varnished wood, but allows them to give the horse subtle expressions that would be impossible to duplicate with stop-motion models. Vivid drawn animation makes the boy seem more alive than his toy--once he’s awakened from his video stupor.

While his artists were at work on “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” Walt Disney often used short cartoons as testing grounds for new animation techniques. The sophisticated and satisfying blending of media in “Off His Rockers” suggests that the studio artists are continuing those experiments more than half a century later.