As the cartoon characters took over, the storyline slid predictably into place as we watched Richie battle dragons and learn a lesson about the "meaning of life."

The Pagemaster is the kind of movie first-grade teachers would have popped into the VCR in the 1990s to kill time on a rainy afternoon.

Built on a wispy premise better suited to the realm of TV, The Pagemaster plays like a slickly produced afternoon special.

The perfunctory prologue and epilogue, the unimaginative use of the literary sources, the mushy songs which Disney appears to have made obligatory and the lacklustre animation left me with little to do but bemoan missed opportunities.