Watch The Phantom Tollbooth For Free

Best movie of this year hands down!

Such a frustrating disappointment

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Fruit snacks have all the fun and yumminess and prettiness of candy, but are a little more beneficial due to being made with real fruit. Same thing with this movie. A fun-filled, colorful, whimsical fantasy, with some educational benefits mixed in with the fun.The animation is beautiful, with bright candy colors and fun zingy patterns. Viewers feel that they are accompanying bored tween Milo on his adventure, and the music is awesome, especially the Bacharach-esque opening and closing theme sung by a band reminiscent of the 5th Dimension, the Cowsills, Spanky and Our Gang, and the Free Design combined.I put this in the pantheon of great contemporary fantasy films, right up there with The Point, The Neverending Story, and Labyrinth

I remember this film I was always fondly attached to, mainly because its just such an enjoyable little film. It encompasses that nostalgic feel of animations together with a lovely and quite innocent little story. When I was younger, I didn't exactly pay much attention to the plot, but the idea of being able to get into a car that builds itself in your room and somehow become animated was just exhilarating to my young imagination and it probably will be to other children of that age.The film begins with Milo, a young boy with way too much time on his hands. Spending another bored afternoon in his apartment, he comes across a strange present in his living room. Opening it up, a tollbooth and car magically form. On the tollbooth, a megaphone gives Milo instructions to get in the car and enter the tollbooth, taking him into another world of mad fun. This world has every strange creature that was ever conceived going around at once. It has the sludge like dull-drums which feed off the exhaustion of those who are unfortunate to travel within their swamp like surroundings and a Police Officer on one wheel who enjoys branding people Guilty until proved innocent on some of the most moronic charges. After a while, he comes across Tock the Dog, a Guard Dog with an Alarm Clock ticking inside him. Together, he and Milo travel to the Kingdom of Words where they meet the Humbug (a sarcastic charlatan who is rather simple minded) and the King of Words, who is in a feud with his brother, the King of Maths after the pair disagreed on whether Maths or Words were more important. Soon Milo finds himself on a quest with Tock and the Humbug to find the Princesses locked in the Castle in the Air, who hope to restore order and peace to the world. After stopping off at the King of Maths, the trio are now armed with the tools needed to face the various ghouls and demons that await them on their journey ahead. Can Milo and his friends make it to the Castle? Can they successfully defeat the dangerous monsters that await them? Only the movie can tell you...

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster is one of my favorite books. Unfortunately the movie does not do it justice. It does not come together in the same way the book did. I am not saying that all film adaptations should follow the book strictly, but the film should at least stand on it's own. I just feel like the movie was quite rushed and did not take time to explain things. The animation was also rushed too. The whole movie just seemed rushed. Weren't half baked ideas frowned upon in the movie? How ironic! A lot of my favorite part of the book were also skipped, such as most of the forest of sight where Milo learns about perspective. Milo's adventure in the valley of sound was also skipped. Milo also did not meet the child from infinity. Tock was also far too patronizing and did not preach as much in the book, where his character was far less perfect and more believable. The order in which Milo hits his destinations, such as Chroma's place, and Dr. Dischord's van also made more sense in the book and probably should have been followed more strictly in the movie, for the sake of the story's flow. Even for children, the film is much too choppy.The end was also very cheesy because it was sung. In fact, most of the songs were overkill.Maybe this book just isn't meant to be made into a film. It isn't exactly subtle and is more of a concept or "how to" type of story where the metaphors are more obvious. Film translates ideas a bit more subtly, with dialog, action, etc. Bad guys being defeated by a pencil firing the words "truth" just doesn't make for a good film. Oh well, maybe another producer will pull off the Phantom Tollbooth in a better way, but for now, read the book; the story flows much more nicely when it is read.

A youngster from San Francisco, bored with school and with time to kill, is offered an educational round-trip from a Phantom Tollbooth; he turns animated and takes a journey to the Castle in the Sky, where Rhyme and Reason have been banished by Dictionopolis and Digitopolis, the feuding worlds of words and numbers who each believe they are most important. Uneven animated feature (with live-action prologue and epilogue featuring Butch Patrick) is an erratic but interesting adaptation of Norton Juster's book, punctuated with musical interludes (and some odd "Wizard of Oz"-isms). Veteran animator Chuck Jones co-wrote the script and co-directed the animated sequences (the first and final cartoon effort from MGM). Jones makes a mistake getting our young hero stuck in the Doldrums in the first act (there's no fascination in lethargy), but he picks up the pace soon after. Digitopolis has a nifty look (and lively Hans Conried as the MathemaGician), and there's a lovely "conducted" sunset and an exciting race to the castle. The animation is alternately crude, clumsy, expressive, colorful, and routine, and the songs are an equally mixed lot (they're pleasant, if not especially catchy). Patrick has a marvelous deep voice for a little kid, but he isn't given anything clever to say; better are Conried, June Foray and Mel Blanc in the voice-over department. Not too popular with child audiences at the time, this may have been a bit high-brow for the matinée crowds. If anything, the film has improved with age, and some of it is quite imaginative. **1/2 from ****