`WIND IN THE WILLOWS' AN ABSOLUTE ENCHANTMENT.

Byline: Lawrence Van Gelder The New York Times

``The Wind in the Willows'' is an unequivocal delight.

Retaining the charm and ambience of Kenneth Grahame's classic of Edwardian children's literature, Terry Jones - the film's writer and director, as well as a co-star - has modernized this 1908 tale of Mole, Rat, Badger and their friend Toad of Toad Hall with an infusion of an Orwellian parable that upholds the virtues of civility and decency while baring the evils of naked yuppie greed.

In so doing, ``The Wind in the Willows,'' brimming with verbal and visual wit and imagination, driven by high adventure, reveling in English eccentricity, enlivened by bursts of song, unafraid of ideas and filled with color and splendid performances, exposes most other movies intended to attract children as out-and-out pap.

In telling the story of conflict between the riverside animals who seek only to live in peace and friendship and the pack of Weasels from the Wild Wood who seek to seize and despoil their halcyon land and estates by transforming them into a bleak factory and a slaughterhouse, Jones has turned to human actors.

With just a suggestion of green on his face and the appropriate costumes for a flamboyant country gentleman with a financially irresponsible mania for the new horseless carriages and a destructive inability to drive them properly, Jones becomes Toad of Toad Hall. He looks rather like most people, except that his very long tongue occasionally darts out to snare an insect.

Others in the altogether coruscating cast include Steve Coogan as the sweet, self-effacing Mole, rendered homeless at the outset by Weasel earth-moving machinery; Eric Idle as Rat, who loves nothing more than boating and picnics and whose rodentlike whiskers frazzle like lightning under stress, and Nicol Williamson as the no-nonsense Badger, who tries to persuade Toad to end the fiscal foolishness (cars, cars, cars) that is enabling the Weasels to buy up his property.

Antony Sher plays the bullet-headed, black-mustached Chief Weasel, a nasty enough sort under the best of circumstances, but with a touch of Nazi when wearing the Weasel Development Company's red insignia on his black tail coat at the drunken old-boy Weasel revel just before their planned demolition of Toad Hall and the start of production at their dog-food factory. (The first raw materials are to be Mole, Rat, Badger and Toad.)

And to add to the fun, in an uproarious courtroom scene, John Cleese puts in an appearance as the defense lawyer who asks the judge to impose the maximum sentence on his client, Toad, who has taken a destructive joyride in a stranger's automobile.

In this adaptation, an enchanting book has become an enchanting film.

THE FACTS

The film: ``The Wind in the Willows'' (PG; reckless behavior).

The stars: Steve Coogan, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Antony Sher, Nicol Williamson, John Cleese, Stephen Fry, Bernard Hill, Michael Palin, Nigel Planer, Julia Sawahla and Victoria Wood.

Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Terry Jones, based on the novel by Kenneth Grahame. Produced by John Goldstone and Jake Eberts. Released by Allied Filmmakers and Columbia Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 27 minutes.

Playing: Selected theaters.

Our rating: Three and One Half Stars.

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Photo

Photo: Bader (Nicol Williamson, left), Mole (Steve Coogan) and Rat (Eric Idle) celebrate the saving of Toad Hall in ``The Wind in the Willows.''