If ever there was a love it or hate it film, this has to be it, so I'm going to make the bold move of being fairly indifferent to it. Or perhaps it's because I'm still in shock. If a couple of past films have played around with the Disney tradition and formula, or bent it a little, or re-moulded it, 'Teacher's Pet' just screws it up and throws it in the trash. There isn't anything remotely like this in the Disney feature pantheon, except - and here's the rub - maybe some of their very early shorts, back when they didn't take themselves very seriously. But that doesn't help the average Disney viewer who slides off the back of 'Brother Bear' and lands in this amphetamine-crazed, Ren and Stimpy-ish freak show of a movie.

Put simply, 'Teacher's Pet' (or maybe it should be called 'Pinocchio 2004') is about a boy and his dog, who wants to be a boy too, and so goes on a road trip to Florida, where a mad scientist changes him into a man - except a grown man, who then woos the boy's mother, before some kind of normalcy is restored. Now couple this with the most deliberately ugly animation ever committed to film, extreme stylisation, a breakneck pace where there are sometimes literally half a dozen gags happening on screen at once (at least I think some of them were gags)... and you can see how this film is going to completely freak out the parent who thinks they're renting just another Disney video for their kids.

Actually this isn't a kid's film. Your teens will probably enjoy it more. It has much more in common with TV animation. It has the warped out of perspective look of everything since 'Rocko's Modern Life', and the irreverant, manic humour of 'Animaniacs' or 'Ren and Stimpy'. The whole thing hurtles by so fast, you're left wondering, "What the heck did I just watch?"

Frankly I don't think the people who made this film were out to make a masterpiece. I think they just wanted to have some fun. And maybe, after pompous epics like 'Hunchback of Notre Dame', that's overdue.

I can't say I exactly liked 'Teacher's Pet' (and by the way, I haven't seen the TV series), but I can't find it in my heart to condemn it, either. There were some very funny moments in it, and it was certainly different. It was imperfect and ramshackle, and the story just sort of blurts out rather than unfolds in any sort of thoughtful manner. In a way that was kind of endearing, but grating at the same time.

I would advise you to try to forget that this is a Disney film, because the expectations that go with that make it very hard to appreciate on its own merits.

It's a weird one, alright. It nearly got three stars from me, but whereas I couldn't bring myself to hate it, I couldn't bring myself to particularly like it either.