BY BOB STRAUSS >FILM CRITIC

"Chicago 10" may be the first cartoon documentary. It combines loads of news reports and guerrilla footage (including some stuff from Haskell Wexler's classic docudrama "Medium Cool") about the civil disorder in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Convention with motion-capture animated sequences of related incidents, mostly the crazy conspiracy trial the following year.

Cheers to director Brett Morgen ("The Kid Stays in the Picture") for going over well-trod ground in a new way. There are no talking-head interviews with old radicals here. No voice-over narration, either.

The context of the massive anti-war movement and other social upheavals of the Vietnam era is richly filled in by the dramas, real and computer-drawn, that we see on screen.

But "Chicago 10" is nonetheless creaky and overinstructive. Like most political docs, it ends up working like an agenda tract more than capturing a breathing moment of history. Plus, the transitions from real footage to that less-than-realistic "Polar Express"-style animation are, to say the least, disorienting. They can't help calling attention to themselves, which constantly disrupts viewer immersion in the film.

Morgen had a good reason for going this route; the live footage of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, et al. in their yippie prime could hardly be matched by actors restaging the closed-courtroom scenes (the hair alone would probably take up most of a shooting day - and the movie's budget - to apply). I don't think Morgen believes that his extreme formal approach will fly with all, or maybe even most, audiences; so again, kudos to him for committing to a difficult choice.

The trial sequences, presumably taken from transcripts, feature the voices of Hank Azaria as Abbie H., Mark Ruffalo as Rubin, Liev Schreiber as their and five other defendants' co-counsel William Kunstler (surviving defense attorney Leonard Weinglass provides his own voice), Nick Nolte as prosecutor Thomas Foran and the recently deceased Roy Scheider as the elderly, civil-

liberties-torturing Judge Julius Hoffman.

Geoffrey Wright provides the voice of Bobby Seale, the Black Panther Party co-founder who, when his chosen lawyer fell ill, insisted on defending himself and wound up bound and gagged under judge's orders.

To his credit, Morgen depicts Seale as a disruptive courtroom presence, compared even with the more clownish antics of the yippies.

Then again, the director made a point of not talking to any of the surviving defendants before writing his script, and Seale, for one, has disputed some of "Chicago 10's" portrayal of what happened to him.

As for that title

: Yes, they were called the Chicago Eight, Seven after Seale was sidelined; but Morgen decided to include the two lawyers in the count, since they wound up convicted of contempt along with their clients. Whatever.

The soundtrack includes Rage Against the Machine and Eminem along with the more era-appropriate Steppenwolf and the like. It's an effort, apparently, to make it "relevant" for the kids today, who have an unpopular war of their own they could be protesting.

Good luck with that one.

bob.strauss@dailynews.com

(818) 713-3670

CHICAGO 10

R: language, violence, sex, nudity, drug use.

Starring: Voices of Hank Azaria, Dylan Baker, Nick Nolte, Mark Ruffalo, Roy Scheider, Liev Schreiber, Jeffrey Wright.

Director: Brett Morgen.

Running time: 1 hr. 40 min.

Playing: Landmark Nuart, West L.A.; Edwards University Town Center, Irvine.

In a nutshell: Combination of archival footage and animated re-enactments doesn't really work, but gets across a lot of information about the 1968 Chicago protests.