Animated fable ‘Delgo’ will appeal to children

By JOHN ANDERSON

Kids will like the color and the classic narrative — a Romeo-Juliet, intergalactic “West Side Story” — and animation buffs will find something new to ponder in “Delgo,” a high-tech animation adventure with a top-flight voice cast and a well-told if familiar fable about power, peace and people getting it together.

With characters that seem to have been birthed via the same motion-capture technique used in “The Polar Express” — but without the inherent creepiness — “Delgo” serves as a metaphor for the taking of the American West, or a mixed-motive Superman leaving Krypton: Jhamora, already inhabited by the peaceful Locknis, is overwhelmed by the emigrant Nohrins, who really just need a new place to live but have leadership issues.

When the evil princess Sedessa (the late Anne Bancroft), sister of the Nohrin king (Louis Gossett Jr.), decides to lay ruin to the planet, she creates hostility between the races that seems insoluble. That is, until the prankish Delgo (Freddie Prinze Jr.) meets the Nohrin princess Kyla (Jennifer Love Hewitt), and they form a bond against the takeover plans of the then-exiled Sedessa.

Much of the characterizations are broadly drawn, and though adults will be amused, there aren’t many surprises (except in the technique). But “Delgo” is best digested by those younger, shorter people among us, who haven’t seen it all before.