After a recent rereading of Norton Juster’s astonishingly intellectually astute “The Phantom Tollbooth”—a magical novel that holds up brilliantly over time—I found myself with the urge to seek out a cinematic version, as the story is ripe for the screen. Just one seems to exist: the legendary Chuck Jones’ 1970 film, which is 95% animation and 5% Dennis-the-Menace-esque live action. Well, the live action segments are pretty silly—Butch Patrick as Milo is a bit too hammy for my liking—but the animated portion, which covers the vast swath of the picture, is a surprisingly loyal adaptation that gives us all the wonderful characters that make the book so special. Tock, the Humbug, Azaz, the Mathemagician, DYNNE, the Whetherman, the Which…the list goes on and on, and The Phantom Tollbooth doesn’t shirk on many. The order of events is a bit mixed up, but that’s forgivable given Jones’ attempt to keep things brisk—ironically, The Phantom Tollbooth could easily have taken on an extra 15 minutes of weight without toppling over from bloated runtime syndrome. The animation is clean, with enough pop to do Dictionopolis and company justice. Parents and children alike could do much worse than giving the movie a go, but not until they’ve thoroughly engrossed themselves in the book several times over.

66/100