If you grew up reading and loving The Wind in the Willows, then this adaptation by Monty Python member Terry Jones will vaguely please you, and vaguely disappoint.

It will please you because some of the key characters, Moley, Ratty and Toad, are beautifully realised in this live-action feature. But it will also disappoint, as Terry Jones (who makes it clear he did NOT grow up with the book) has felt it necessary to depart wildly from the classic children's tale, and turn it into a moralistic politically-correct assault on modern-day developers and countryside despoilers. It's all very well intentioned of course, but quite unecessary in this context.

But I might be too close to the book, which was one of my very favourites as a child, and which I've read very often since. I expect that if taken by itself, without knowledge of the original source, this adaptation would give viewers, particularly young children, a lot of pleasure. I've just been spoilt by early exposure to the original.

My irritation at the changes in both plot and mood are lessened by some fine casting and acting. Steve Coogan is outstanding as Mole, with just the right warm, cuddly insecure diffidence, and another Python, Eric Idle, is a definitive Ratty, who just loves messing around in boats. And his high-Edwardian outfits, natty blazers and all, are sheer joy.

Director Terry Jones is not too far behind those two in his performance as the ebulliently stupid Toad, and watch for cameo appearances from two more Pythons, with Michael Palin as the Sun and John Cleese as Toad's Defence Attorney, who demands that Toad receive maximum punishment for his theft and destruction of a toot-toot machine -- the eighth car the motor-mad Toad had destroyed.

The Weasels, the wildest denizens of the Wild Woods, are played as vicious upper-crust toffs, all very spivvy in their natty costumes, with their chief played with delicious evilness by Antony Sher. Their chief foe, and Toad's stern friend, is Badger, played as a dour Scotsman by veteran Shakesperian actor Nicol Williamson.

If Terry Jones had just trusted more in the original material and resisted the urge to drag the tale screaming into accord with modern-day sensibilities, then this could have been a classic. As it is, children will love it, but it does leave the classic children's novel rather high and dry.

This is an excellent widescreen anamorphic transfer; the cinematography of the English countryside is luscious, with the appropriately-named River Mole bathed in Edwardian light.

The soundtrack is your basic stereo, very clear and clean with no distortion.

Extras commence with a very boring four-minute featurette entitled From Sketches to Scene, which show us very fragmentary storyboard sketches for the train-ride escape sequence, interspersed with the actual film scene. Ho-hum.

Then comes a three-minute feature on the costumes used in the movie - slightly more interesting than the first feature, but still ho-hum.

The obligatory 'Making Of' documentary, which runs for 25 minutes, is titled Go Wild in the Country. We know we're in for a wild ride the moment we hear the voice-over narrator, who sounds like a provincial Englishman trying to sound like an American. He's excruciating, and he sets the tone for a very boring, prosaic feature.

Then there's a feature, which presents the four main songs featured during the movie -- 'Messing About on the River', 'Toad's Song', 'Weasel's song' and 'Riverbanker's Song'. The songs are a non-event in the movie; they're not helped by the sing-along subtitles. The only blessing is that we're spared a sing-along to the closing-credits song, which is the worst sort of ersatz-American pop song, totally out of keeping with the theme of Wind in the Willows.

Finally, there is an audio commentary by Terry Jones, which is as interesting as most of these things are. That means that it's devoid of interest for about 90 per cent of the time, which calls for a lot of devoted listening to glean anything remotely worthwhile.

Sorry if I sound overly critical. Your children will most probably love it, and it does boast some great character-acting from Messrs Coogan, Idle and Jones. Let your children be the judges ......