AT the start of Disney's latest CGI animation extravaganza, Benny the Squirrel (Jim Belushi) says, "Stealing is such a strong word. I prefer liberating." Let's just say "The Wild" liberates the plot of "Madagascar" and makes that bland movie look like the king of the popcorn jungle.

These films take years to produce, so "The Wild" isn't exactly a ripoff - but it isn't exactly fun, either. Once again, the coddled animals in the Central Park Zoo long for adventure and find it, this time when little Ryan the Lion hops a fence and winds up in a ship bound for Africa.

His dad, Samson (Kiefer Sutherland), spends the movie trying to rescue him a la "Finding Nemo" along with a lady giraffe (Janeane Garofalo), the squirrel who's in love with her and a cowardly koala (Eddie Izzard).

The script by the writers of "Santa Clause 2" (and - brace yourself - the upcoming "Santa Clause 3") has a weak story that is mainly devoted to stringing together pratfalls. Every few minutes the animals run around madly until they bump into something and fall down. Some of these antics will get laughs from your kids, but no 5-year-old goes to the movies by himself. The jokes sprinkled in for adults are just strange. "We will fight them with peaches," declares the koala at a feisty Churchillian moment.

Things get weirder: A central plot element is curling (that freakish pursuit of Canadians involving brooms and 44-pound rocks, an activity that could only seem like a valid sport if you had to spend the winter in Saskatchewan). Samson keeps having psychedelic hallucinations as if someone's been flavoring his carrion with magic mushrooms and the scary bad guys are . . . wildebeests?

There is also some painful ethnic humor: The pigeons in the zoo have South Asian accents, seemingly because the writers think the way Indians talk is automatically funny. Not until the final scenes of this brief movie (it's barely 75 minutes excluding credits) do we get a clever matchup of animals and personality: The chameleons, being masters of deception, turn out to be spies.

The shy kiddie lion is worried about his meek roar, but it turns out that Samson is an utter wimp, too. What kid wants to see a cartoon featuring a weak father figure who needs a pep talk from his toddler son? The only lions with less spirit than Samson and Ryan are the ones who play football in Detroit.



Sutherland's gruff monotone is better suited for a life-insurance commercial than for getting laughs. Garofalo's giraffe (the giraffalo?) has some of the better lines (in Midtown Manhattan, the giraffe cranes around and says, "I can't see anything, for a change") but unlike David Schwimmer, who did some great readings as the giraffe in Madagascar, she doesn't add much to the material. Except for Izzard, who brings an unctuous Peter Ustinov quality to the koala, none of the other actors registers, either. Give me Denis Leary as a saber-toothed tiger any day.