Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005)

Kirikou et les betes sauvages (Kirikou and the Wild Beasts) 6.5/10 :fresh: Kirikou et les betes sauvages is a sequel to Kirikou et la sorciere, which I've never seen. The diminutive star of the show is little Kirikou - a baby who is nonetheless able to talk, run faster than a hyena (for great stretches of time no less), and out think pretty much everyone and everything. He's also entirely naked. But then, given he lives in a small African village, that's understandable. Actually, a quick note for those of a prudish disposition - Kirikou is a French movie, and has French sensibilities. The African women are eternally topless, the children are entirely naked, and whilst not exactly anatomically correct they're not neutered. If you're of the "breasts are bad" brigade then you should probably skip it. None of the parents or kids at the showing I went to seemed to have any problem with it at all, which is great. Anyway, Kirikou has (apparently) saved the village from the evil sorceress and returned water to his village in the first movie. In this one our little hero continues to battle the sorceress' machinations and her evil creatures (called [url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fetish]"fetishes"[/url] and we're not talking whips and chains, but rather wooden "robots"). Les betes sauvages is comprised of four connected tales whereing Kirikou deals with a ravaging hyena, a possessed oxen, and a timely giraffe. The fourth tale, curiously, doesn't deal with beasts at all, but rather plants. In each case Kirikou is shown to be smarter than his village, although initially ignored and derided only to lead them to triumph, and dancing. [center] [/center] The stories are fairly simple - this is very much a kid's cartoon, albeit without the usual pandering that the likes of Disney these days inject - and the animation itself is unsophisticated though bearing a distinct stylistic charm. Kirikou's journey across large chunks of Africa on the head of the giraffe in the third story gives the animators the chance to show off some delightful backgrounds and wonderful scenery while the inevitable dances at the end of each tale are probably the most complicated the animation gets. Kirikou won't hang with you as the likes of Les Triplets or anything by our man Miyazaki, but for an afternoon's light entertainment c'est bon.