REVIEWED - HOME ON THE RANGE: In a rather bitter irony, the press show of Home on the Range, the latest animated money pit to be touted as Disney's final hand-drawn cartoon feature, made use of state-of-the-art digital projection, writes Donald Clarke.

All those ones and zeroes that were rendering the colours so sharp must have been simultaneously contemplating their role in making Toy Story and its successors so popular and in edging the pen-and-ink men towards the cliff ledge (later, following the traditions of their art, to hit the desert below with a tiny puff of dust).

Truth be told, Home on the Range is not so bad. The story of a herd of cows who turn bounty hunters to help save their owner's farm, it has none of the pomposity of recent snoozathons such as Treasure Planet or Atlantis: The Lost Empire; nor does it seek to make statements about everything in the manner of last year's sanctimonious Brother Bear. Drawn in the angular, clean style of Chuck Jones's Road Runner cartoons, the film is a lively, undemanding romp featuring a great many decent jokes and faultless voice work throughout.

When earthy show cow Maggie arrives on Patch of Heaven Farm, she is initially spurned by the snooty (and inexplicably English) Mrs Caloway. It soon becomes clear, however, that the squabbling cattle will have to bury their differences to save the Patch from foreclosure. Bringing daft Grace along for support, they set out in search of the deadly cattle rustler Alameda Slim.

The picture features a glorious psychedelic episode that bears comparison with the Pink Elephant sequence from Dumbo, and the songs by K.D. Lang are more than serviceable. But the main selling point is the tasty vocal double act between Judi Dench as Mrs Caloway and Roseanne Barr as Maggie. There's a brilliant sitcom in there somewhere.