ANIMATED AMUSEMENT PARK ADVENTURE STALLS VISUALLY

In the amiable animated feature “Wonder Park,” a child’s imagination can power an amusement park. Unfortunately, the movie falls shy of providing the same sensory thrill ride.

June (voiced by Brianna Denski) is an 8-yearold who displays an unusual aptitude for engineering. She has developed her talent through conversations with her mother (voiced by Jennifer Garner), who talks June through her plans for a park called Wonderland, where animals run the rides and carousels are mounted with fish that really fly. But when her mother falls ill, June abandons the blueprints for her park, trading her imagination for worry.

‘Wonder Park’

› Rating: PG

› Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes

Having abandoned her daydreams, June is shocked when she wanders into the woods after escaping a trip to camp and finds Wonderland fully realized. The park is now haunted by a dark vortex that has damaged the rides. With the help of her park’s animal crew, June must conjure up solutions to fix the damage.

“Wonder Park” thrives when it emphasizes the practical pleasures of creativity.

The movie visualizes the gears and pulleys of June’s creations, producing exciting action scenes that make fantasies function efficiently. (Its uncredited director, Dylan Brown, was removed from the film after allegations surfaced of what The Hollywood Reporter and other outlets described as “inappropriate and unwanted conduct.” Brown disputed the allegations.) But when these sequences fall back to accommodate the narrative, the shabbiness of the visual design drains energy from the screen.

The characters are unexpressive and generic, making it difficult to connect to their emotions, and murky colors dim the fantasy. Although its protagonist is blessed with a gift for engineering the impossible, “Wonder Park” is a film where faulty execution betrays a healthy imagination.

PARAMOUNT PICTURES/IMDB/TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE The wonders of Wonder Park are dampened by the pall of grief that the protagonist is experiencing, while the wacky amusement park antics prevent the story from going especially deep.