BY LARRY CARROLL | For years now Disney has been churning out direct-to-video sequels of their most beloved animated films. "Cinderella 2", "The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea", "Lady and the Tramp 2: Scamp's Adventure" and many more have made a huge splash on video simply because there is a built in audience for any animated product carrying the corporate name of Walt Disney. The formula is the same as their Disney predecessors: take a beautiful girl, add in a goofy sidekick and smirking villain, throw in a dashing square-jawed guy and a touch of forbidden love for flavoring, and then mix it all in a big pot full of musical numbers. But each of these elements almost always turn out to be inferior to those in the originals, and once the excitement of the Supermarket release wears off, the cassettes are destined to sit untouched, gathering dust on the tops of ten million VCRs.

This has always been fine and good, because if you buy a straight-to-video release, especially when it's a sequel, you should know what you're getting yourself into (it's hard to feel sympathetic towards anyone who spent $20 on "The Hunchback of Notre Dame II"). However, something happened a few years ago that would change the rules forever. Originally planned for a straight-to-video release, Disney instead put "Toy Story 2" in the theaters when they saw how good it had turned out. The sequel received an overwhelmingly positive reception among the critics, as well as at the box office. Now, Disney hopes to find the same success with the sequel to the 1953 animated classic "Peter Pan" by asking you to "Return to Never Land". And to this movie I'd like to say, "I knew 'Toy Story 2'. I saw it opening day, and I loved it and it was a very special film. And you are no 'Toy Story 2'".

"Return to Neverland" is the worst kind of cinematic drivel. A downright maddening film, it's a lame attempt to manipulate the love that children and their parents have for a classic fairy tale character in the name of a quick buck.

Since the original "Peter Pan" was a tale of fantasy and faith, this movie begins appropriately enough - by giving you the fantasy that it might be something substantial. The opening scenes are set during World War II and tell the story of how Wendy Darling (the girl Peter Pan once took away to Never Land) has grown up and married and now lives in London with her two children. Everything seems downright happily ever after with the family, until the husband heads off to serve in the war.

Before leaving, he asks their daughter Jane to be a big girl and watch over the welfare of her mother and young brother. Jane takes this responsibility very seriously, and appears to be sacrificing her childhood to honor her father's wish. As the bombs drop around their home in London, Wendy is informed that all children will be relocated to the countryside for their own protection. As she prepares her children for their departure, Wendy tries to keep up everyone's spirits with tales of Peter Pan, the Lost Boys and their adventures, but it's hard to believe in "faith, trust and pixie dust" when your house is surrounded by charred ruins.

These scenes are surprisingly dark and show some promise that the film will go in unexpected directions. All hope is lost, however, as soon as Captain Hook and his cronies appear at Jane's window. Mistaking her for Wendy (apparently he doesn't realize that people in the real world age), the dastardly villain kidnaps Jane and takes her to Never Land to use as bait for capturing his arch-enemy, the eternally young and carefree Peter Pan.

Once Jane hits Never Land, the whole film loses any originality whatsoever. Peter Pan and The Lost Boys save Jane, naturally. Jane says she doesn't believe in them (which seems kind of difficult since they're staring her in the face), she has a moment of doubt where Hook takes advantage of her, and then she is redeemed. These plot points, taken straight out of the handbook "How to Write a Direct-to-Video Sequel" (available at your local Barnes & Noble for MSRP $19.99) are not only annoyingly adhered to, but they are rushed along in a film that clocks in at a pathetic 72 minutes!

Now, I'm not saying that I wish I could have seen more of "Return to Neverland", but if I were going to pay $9.50 for a movie, I would hope it would at least think enough of itself to attempt to entertain me for, say, ninety minutes.

The director(s), Robin Budd and Donovan Cook, seem content to present a Xerox of the original film - Pan swordfighting Hook with his knife, Tinkerbell being jealous of Peter's attentions towards another girl, the scene where the pixie dust makes someone fly for the first time, and so on. There are a few times where the film at least pretends to come up with something new - in the original movie Hook was pursued by an alligator that once had a taste of him - in this movie it's an octopus. It took three writers to come up with this!

You might be thinking that this is a movie for little kids, and that they won't care if "Return to Never Land" rips-off something that came out fifty years ago. Many of the kids who go to see this movie, however, will have seen the original on video, and are bound to compare the two. Kids who haven't seen it still have undoubtedly become so familiar with all the conventions of the genre that they too, will find the film boring. When I see a great kid's film with an audience, I always find it amazing how all these little kids come in hyper and bouncing off the walls, then suddenly sit perfectly still with their eyes wide open as magic unfurls in front of them. At the screening I attended, kids seemed more hyper after the film began, squirming and talking for the whole film. That's the ultimate sign of a bad kid's film.

I also have to comment on the animation, which is just horrible. It reminded me of one of those Don Bluth films from the eighties, or some sort of bad Saturday morning cartoon. Every now and then, the animators even mix in some computer-generated action shots that stick out like a sore-thumb. At every possible opportunity, it seems that Disney cut corners with this production, and it shows.

If you have children in your life and they insist on seeing this film, rent it for them when it comes out on video. That's where "Return to Never Land" should have been in the first place.

GRADE: D