A WISE MONKEY TALE

Inconsiderable business, in the manner of a folk tale about how Monkey fools the other animals when he falls into a deep hole in the jungle. Pretending to find a message from Gorilla on a banana leaf, he ""reads"" out: ""If very wise you wish to be/ Come down here, wait and see""--and for some reason Lion, Snake, Zebra and Elephant all swallow the bait, enabling Monkey to climb up over them and get out. It's a synthetic trick tale with as much wit as some traditional ones, for what that's worth--but so slight that the entire project seems more overblown than enlarged by Maestro's big, blooming, mildly stylized jungle scenes.