An animated lexicon of WWII clichés for toddlers who have yet to rent "Where Eagles Dare" or "Battle of Britain." In an attempt to breathe life back into England's legendary Ealing Studios, the British Film Council aligned themselves with Disney and John M. Williams, producer of "Shrek" to form Vanguard Animation. Poised to become Europe's first "full-scale digital animation studio," their inaugural CGI feature is the $40 million adventure tale of Valiant, a traditionally diminutive Disney lead whose efforts on behalf of the Royal Air Force Homing Pigeon Service make him a hero.<br /><br />If you must make a film about winged creatures during the war, pigeons are the obvious choice. Not ranked high on the list of favorite animated species, pigeons did make brief (and sultry) appearances during the war in a pair of first-rate Warner Bros. propaganda cartoons, "Spies" and "Plane Daffy." Anthropomorphic superstar Heckle once told Jekyll (or was it the other way around), "We're cartoon characters. We can do whatever we want!" The same can't be said of these salt-tailed pigeons. Aside from personification, there isn't much they do that couldn't be accomplished with trained, live-action carriers. The majority of the gags are dialogue driven and the limited visuals, awash with hideous pastels, on par with Disney-TV.<br /><br />At its best, classic Disney represents childhood primers on adult neurosis. Hey kids -- Bambi sure is cute, but guess what? Just like Bambi's mother, your mommy is going to die, although chances are it won't be from a hunter's bullet. Check out Disney's "On the Front Lines" DVD collection. "Education for Death" is as harrowing as any live-action propaganda. If only the fledgling studio held true to its name by heralding even a slight anti-war vanguard. It is bad enough that so many Depends-wearing Americans back Bush, do we really need a recruitment film for the Papmers generation? I've been obsessed with American studio animation for longer than I care to recall. Bugs, Daffy, Betty Boop and Donald Duck can all out-act Keanu, Bennifer, Antonio and Julia. On their worst days, Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Dave Fleischer and Walt Disney drew circle-upon-circles around ninety-percent of today's CGI whiz kids. Their's was cartoon storytelling at its finest: inventive, resourceful and timed to the millisecond. The question of whether they were drawn for moppets or adults with adolescent longings is moot. Kids deserve quality multiplex-fodder as much as their parental guardians. When asked his target audience, animation guru Chuck Jones replied, "we make them for ourselves and hope that if we like it, everyone else will." <br /><br />Being from the old school, I experienced wet-eyes when news broke that Disney put an end to hand-drawn animation. (I can see Disney's famous "Nine Old Men" terminal at their terminals.) This is not to say that all CGI lacks imagination. Pixar's "A Bug's Life" and "Finding Nemo" do Uncle Walt justice. Nor is it a case of the incompetent craftsman laying blame on his toolbox. "Valiant" had all the right ingredients save one: imagination. That's what make Disney's Summer 2005 offering a less than valiant effort.