The Magic Roundabout; French: Pollux – Le manège enchanté) is a 2005 animated adventure fantasy comedy film based on the television series of the same name.

The story sees a group of unlikely heroes who go on a quest to stop a reawakened villain, who intends on freezing the world, from retrieving a set of powerful diamonds.

The damage causes an ice wizard to fly out and freeze the roundabout over, trapping repairman Mr Rusty, Dougal's young owner Florence, and two other children named Coral and Basil within an icy cell.

Horrified, Dougal and his friends, Brian the cynical snail, Ermintrude the opera-singing cow and Dylan the hippie rabbit, summon the jack-in-the-box-like wizard Zebedee for help.

Meanwhile after escaping, Zeebad discovers a Foot guard animatronic, Soldier Sam, that was catapulted from the roundabout when it froze over and animates him to help him find the diamonds.

While saddened, Dougal and his friends continue their journey to retrieve the diamonds respectively from a lava-bordered volcano and an ancient temple filled with evil skeleton guards.

Sam, having realised his true duty is to guard the roundabout, arrives on the moose to battle Zeebad, but is overpowered and fatally wounded.

He watched bolexbrothers' commercials, and upon learning that the studio's financial income was drying up, he decided to start building a feature film slate.

The Rodon brothers had not done any films before and needed someone to do the storyboards and script, so they turned to director and editor Dave Borthwick, actor and writer Paul Bassett Davies and Leighton.

Leighton got in touch with Trevor Horn's wife Jill Sinclair and told her that bolexbrothers was making the film, at which she joined in as an executive producer.

Around the same time, Action Synthese decided to wait until they had developed all the characters along with the animation tests before they managed to get Pathé to finance the film production.

[7] According to Leighton, the film had a slightly darker tone than the show; bolexbrothers wanted to take the action away from the Magic Garden, with their story starting there, but then having the characters go on a globe-trotting adventure around the world.

This was because a lot of animated films in the 2000s, such as DreamWorks Pictures' Shrek and Disney and Pixar's Monsters, Inc., attempted to hit two demographics to include things that would appeal to both adults and children.

[5][9] Les Films Action also hired Jean Duval to create and supervise their graphic charter for the development of future Magic Roundabout productions.

[5] The French voices were provided by Henri Salvador, Vanessa Paradis, Michel Galabru, Eddy Mitchell, Gérard Jugnot, Dany Boon, Élie Semoun and Valérie Lemercier.

The English voice cast included Robbie Williams, Kylie Minogue, Ian McKellen, Joanna Lumley, Bill Nighy, Tom Baker, Jim Broadbent, Ray Winstone, Lee Evans, Ediz Mahmut, Daniella Loftus and Jimmy Hibbert.

As a result, everything went well; for example, Boon loved Brian so much that he systematically wanted to do additional takes in order to explore the facets of the character's personality.

Unfortunately, due to his busy schedule and travelling between London and France, Duval had to delegate some of the recording sessions with the actors and was not able to work with Paradis.

[15] Time Out wrote: "The story’s clearly aimed at the Teletubbies fraternity who would never question a scenario as ridiculous as this ... granted, the level of computer animation isn’t exactly state-of-the-art, but it’s certainly florid enough to captivate undemanding five-year-olds ... Robbie Williams and Bill Nighy’s stoned rabbit help transform what should have been an unendurable fiasco into an, albeit forgettable, treat for toddlers.

[16] William Thomas of Empire wrote: "this version is far slicker and attempts a bit of Hollywood-style action-adventure grandstanding, but it works both as a trip down memory lane and as an entertaining movie for (very) young children".

The majority of the British cast's voice work was dubbed by American celebrities such as Chevy Chase (Train), Jimmy Fallon (Dylan), Whoopi Goldberg (Ermintrude), Bill Hader (Soldier Sam), Macy (Brian), and Jon Stewart (Zeebad).

The U.S. screenplay adaptation was handled by Butch Hartman;[18] the original script was heavily revised via the addition of numerous references to popular culture, as well as the occasional fart joke.

The United States version also features Kevin Smith as the voice of Moose, who was originally a non-speaking character, and adds narration by Judi Dench.

The consensus reads: "Overloaded with pop culture references, but lacking in compelling characters and plot, Doogal is too simple-minded even for the kiddies".

[22][23] It has a score of 23 out of 100 ("generally unfavorable") on Metacritic, and an F rating from Entertainment Weekly writing that "very young children should be angry... where is it written that 4-year-olds don't deserve a good story, decent characters, and a modicum of coherence?".

Filled to the brim with pop culture references and other such gags that'll be even less funny a few years from now, it's like Shrek without the occasional bit of charm and surprise".

[27] Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "The key frame animation, based on three-dimensional models, is rudimentary, with none of the characters proving visually arresting."

Ned Martel of The New York Times wrote, "In Doogal setting the world right again involves a badly paced quest for three diamonds, assorted jokes that don't land, and a daringly incoherent climactic confrontation.

A couple years later, the Blu-ray was re-released as part of Fox Pathé Europa's "Sélection Blu-VIP" service where it contains a DVD copy of the film (in a plastic sleeve) as well as a booklet containing a catalog of Blu-ray releases from 20th Century Fox, Pathé, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and EuropaCorp along with a code on the back of it which can be used on the now-defunct 'Le Club BLU-VIP' website to earn points for merchandise for films released at the time (à la Disney Movie Rewards).

[citation needed] Before the film was released, a sequel to The Magic Roundabout was announced to be in development, with the voice cast expected to reprise their roles.