Recess: School’s Out

Six fourth-grade kids devote their summer vacation to thwarting a diabolical plot to alter the moon’s orbit, thereby doing away with summers—and summer vacation—once and for all. This cartoon feature has the Disney name on it, but the level of animation is somewhere south of Steamboat Willie. In fact, it makes The Simpsons look like Fantasia 2000—which would be all right if Jonathan Greenberg’s script had anything like the spiky wit and rascally wisdom of The Simpsons. Instead, it’s standard third-generation Little Rascals stuff, mediocre but harmless, a passable baby-sitter for parents whose kids have already seen the hundreds of better kiddie cartoons available on the shelves of any fair-sized video store. Adult voices include James Woods, Dabney Coleman and Robert Goulet.