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A George Lucas story goes the animation route in ‘Strange Magic’

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Love may or may not be strange, but CGI replicas of the human face sure are. As Masahiro Mori’s notion of the “uncanny valley” hypothesizes, the closer the simulacrum gets to the real thing, the more it creeps out people.

Take, for example, Marianne (Evan Rachel Wood), the Princess of the Fairy Kingdom, in this ersatz kiddie fodder directed by Gary Rydstrom from a story by George Lucas (evident from the generic names). Her indigo wings look lovely, and her arms, legs, and hands are lithe and attractive. But her face resembles a marzipan mask of Audrey Tautou with eyes designed by Margaret Keane. If I was a 6-year-old, that would give me more nightmares than the buggy but huggable Bog King (Alan Cumming, with a Shrek-like Scottish burr), regent of the marginally more imaginative “Dark Forest” (I especially like the mushrooms).

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Otherwise, “Strange Magic” should not offend anyone. Except for those diehards who still seethe whenever their favorite song from the last five decades ends up in a car or Coke commercial. For that’s what “Magic” is made of, wall-to-wall covers of golden oldies, such as the title 1975 tune by the Electric Light Orchestra, Elvis’s 1962 hit “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” and, as a testimonial to feminist grit, Kelly Clarkson’s 2011 “Stronger.” If you close your eyes you’d think it was a commercial for a “Great Love Songs” DVD collection.

“Strange Magic” might also dismay those cranks who bewail the numbing repetitiousness, mediocrity, and moralism that has paralyzed animated films made for kids at least since Disney’s adaptation of “Beauty and the Beast” (1991). In this version, Marianne (or is it her vapid sister, Dawn, voiced by Meredith Anne Bull?) takes the part of Beauty. The Bog King (or is it the stunted, plucky Sunny voiced by Elijah Kelley?) fills in for the Beast. And Roland (Sam Palladio) substitutes for the callow, treacherous Gaston.

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Since that much-abused fable doesn’t quite provide enough narrative fodder for the movie’s playlist, Lucas and company also throw in snatches of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” with the addition of a Sugar Plum Fairy (Kristin Chenoweth), who looks like a combination of Tinkerbelle, the Little Mermaid, and the Hindu goddess Lakshmi. She stirs things up with her aphrodisiacal pixie dust (what, no “Love Potion No. 9”?), and that part of the movie actually shows promise, until it settles into the usual platitudinous wrap-up.

So what have we learned? That it’s OK to be different as long as you get married and settle down? That you shouldn’t judge people (or whatever) by their appearance, though that principle seems to apply more to ugly guys than to homely women? Or maybe that simulated movies are as creepy as simulated faces — they are computer-generated imitations that try hard, but fall short of the real thing.

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Peter Keough can be reached at petervkeough@gmail.com.