`HUCK' IS JUST A LITTLE TOO CUTE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 3, 1993                   TAG: 9304030272
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: C10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
`HUCK' IS JUST A LITTLE TOO CUTE
Judged as a Disney adventure movie, "The Adventures of Huck Finn" is all right. It's not another "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," but it's entertaining enough.
Judged as a screen adapdation of a brilliant, timeless novel, the film is typical Hollywood hash. It recreates some of the plot details, but misses the heart of Mark Twain's fiction. This Huck isn't a young man trying to discover who he is and what he believes in - and, in the process, what his country is.
This Huck is cute.
And not just cute, but Disney cute; big eyes, mischievous grin, tousled red hair, rosy cheeks, freshly scrubbed, makes-you-wanna-puke cute. Sure, he smokes a pipe (once), and he says "hell" a few times, but this isn't Twain's Huck, it's Walt's Huck. And the two don't have much in common.
The story begins with Huck (Elijah Woods) in a fistfight, but that ends when he realizes that his drunken Pap (Ron Perlman) has come back. Pap is one frightening character, and it's because of him that Huck finds himself on a raft floating down the Mississippi with the runaway slave Jim (Courtney B. Vance).
Apparently writer/director Stephen Sommers had some problem finding appropriate locations. Only a small part of the action takes place on the river, and most of those scenes were filmed in a studio. The movie doesn't manage to sustain a believable sense of time and place the way the best recent period pieces - "Unforgiven," "Dances With Wolves," "Last of the Mohicans" - have.
The novel's episodic plot doesn't fare too well on the screen either. Sommers reduces it to two incidents, the feud and one part of Huck's and Jim's exploits with the King (Jason Robards) and the Duke (Robbie Coltrane). The part of the story involving the two con men takes up most of the second half. It's typical Disney fare with clever Huck outwitting the bumbling adults.
The film's finish tries to combine Twain's famous last line with a conventional "happy" ending. Those who know and love the book will be insulted by it. Younger viewers who don't understand who Huck is and what he represents probably will be mystified.
Huck's story has been filmed several times before and doubtless it will be again. In future screen histories, this version will be ranked among the less memorable, and that's about the best that can be said for it.
\ Viewer's Guide: The Adventures of Huck Finn: **. A Disney release playing at the Salem Valley 8 and Valley View Mall 6. Rated PG for mild violence and some cussing. 107 min.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB