"Jonah," the new Veggie Tales movie, is the first attempt at Big Idea Productions of Chicago to put a full-length film in theaters. This computer-animated, song-filled extravaganza is worth the ticket price and will hold your attention throughout the 70 minutes of colorful vegetable characters, clever lines, and lively music.

The movie starts out in a typical Veggie Tales way, with a Volkswagen van full of familiar characters careening through dark mountain roads in search of a concert. Bob the Tomato, the serious one, is trying to drive while Mr. Asparagus keeps hitting him in the head with a guitar and three youngsters (Junior Asparagus, Laura, and Miss Pea) belt out silly songs in the back seat. After losing the steering wheel, Bob nearly runs over a family of porcupines who flatten two of the van's tires, sending the group down a dirt road and almost into the river. The shaken group of vegetables gets out of the van and spots a Seafood restaurant a little way down the river. It looks mysterious, its lights shining against the dark flowing water and an old sailing ship docked beside it. The gang ends up there, greeted by the French Peas who show them a table next to The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything (you'll recognize their song).

The pirates (Larry the Cucumber and two others) begin to tell a story about Compassion and Mercy (since Bob is still mad at Mr. Asparagus, and Junior is blaming Laura for their predicament). This is the old story of the prophet Jonah and his famous run from the Lord. It seems that somehow the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything are older than we realize, and they were the ones who sailed reluctant Jonah out to Sea to try and run away from God, who told him to go in the other direction, over the desert, to give a message to the evil town of Ninevah.

As you know, running away from God doesn't work, and Jonah causes all sorts of problems for his inexperienced shipmates, including an odd fellow passenger named Hillel, who is a talking (and rather annoying) purple worm. Jonah ends up in the belly of a whale, depressed, and feeling guilty. This is where the best scene of the movie happens: a chorus of angels appears to Jonah, looking like a sparkly Southern soul choir and singing "He Is the God of Second Chances." The animation on this scene is spectacular, and the music is toe-tapping good.

As for the rest of the story, you need to see the film. The film is not perfect; younger children may not easily follow the way the story goes back and forth between the Jonah scenes and the Seafood Restaurant scenes. The movie takes little longer than it should have, and the final song is a bit hoaky. However, the computer animation is top-rate throughout--check out how the water looks like it's flowing, and how those angels glow. Big Idea was the first to use fully computer-animated films in the early nineties, and their message of bringing "Sunday School values to Saturday morning cartoons" is refreshing. Your children (and you) will probably learn something from "Jonah," and you're sure to have some laughs and hum along. Four stars out of Five.