JINGLING ALL THE WAY TO THE OLD DALMATIAN FARM

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

A new genre may be aborning--the animated feature for which no one has to go to the trouble of drawing all those millions of cels. The wondrous Babe, with its seamless blend of live footage, mechanical and visual effects and uplifting sentiment, pioneered the idea; 101 Dalmatians (which, of course, remakes one of pure animation's classics) cheerfully expands the territory; and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has always seemed more of a cartoon character than an actor anyway, may be about to Jingle All the Way to the bank with his variation on it.

Primary colors and primal emotions, innocently resourceful heroes and comically scary villains--these have always been animation's basics, and Dalmatians (directed by Stephen Herek) remains blessed with the wickedest of all Disney witches, Cruella De Vil. She's as determined as she was in 1961 to have a coat made of puppy-dog skins, still employs variously addled henchmen to work her will and is still thwarted by the combined wit of what appears to be most of the Britain's fauna. For us dog saps, it is especially nice to see cuddlesomely real pooches instead of drawn ones doing smart-pet tricks. Fans of the high-diva mode will doubtless feel the same about Glenn Close's Cruella. In (creepy) flesh and (chilly) blood, the character is more fun for grownups than she was as an animated abstraction of evil.

Schwarzenegger's Howard Langston is, in contrast, based more or less on life models. We've all been where he's going--on a desperate last-minute search for the overhyped toy without which a kid's Christmas morning will be miserable. In this case the problem is exacerbated by the absence of Turbo Man, a perfectly awful action figure, from available shelves and by Langston's rivalry for the elusive doll with one Myron Larabee (the comedian Sinbad), a bomb-toting mailman who has gone permanently postal. Director Brian Levant envisions their holiday world in cheerily surreal terms, and Arnold's other obstacles include an unaccountably savage reindeer, an army of corrupt Santa Clauses and a motorcycle cop who is a sort of uniformed Wile E. Coyote.

O.K., the ending, when Arnold turns into Turbo Man, is preposterous, though perhaps no more so than the uncanny interspecies communication of Dalmatians. But the technical sophistication of these trick-laden films appeals to older kids in a way that classic animation--which bears a kid-stuff taint--often does not. It may be the ultimate merchandising tool. And one we're going to see more of.

--Richard Schickel