Cody Konior
I kind of liked Highmore until I saw this snore fest, Jesus, his acting was completely overdone and unbelievably bad, almost like he was trying to tank the film on purpose. We made it to the 40 minute mark before skipping ahead to the end, seeing it got better, and going back to finish it properly. Hence the addition of 2 marks to the 1 it would have otherwise gotten. I feel like giving it a 4 would be too generous. The characters are ugly and regarding the plot every single set piece is ruined seconds before it happens. "Oh I hope X doesn't happen." Well it's going to happen right now. "If you see someone..." Well they will see someone right now. Great writing...Filled with sexual innuendo and a guest appearance by Snoop Dog playing the exact same fake and sleazy character he does in every single movie, this movie is a real turd. Avoid.
Neil Welch
The feeling of oddness arises, I think, from what appears to be an English-speaking live-action real-world adventure grafted onto a Fench original CGI fantasy. The joining together is done very well, but it's still a Welsh dresser top on a G Plan sideboard.Having said that, the film is entertaining, and features top notch voice talent, albeit in weird combinations. In what other film would you expect to encounter Robert De Niro and Snoop Dogg? The story is engaging and always moving forwards, but don't expect to encounter anything which will surprise you.And thank heaven for CGI, courtesy of which the romantic interest between 48 year old Madonna and 14 year old Freddie Highmore doesn't seem too weird.This is a decent family film.
Filiberto Balderrama García
OK, I was reading on internet, and I finally understood the problem, the US and UK version were edited!!!!! more than edited, they were raped, seriously, there were 9 minutes of the movie that were deleted 9 minutes really important for the story.I'm Mexican and I had the chance to watch the original version, and I must say it's not my favorite children's movie but it has a lot of good points, so I'm expecting the sequels. Really, check the original version is way lot better.Changing topic (because this thing won't let me post until I complete ten lines and I've already said all that I wanted to say) the principal actor Freddie Highmore is really surprising me, I loved him on the Charlie's Chocolate Factory and he's been doing a great work since then, I think is just matter of time for this kid to make the big jump to the great leagues, I think he will surprise us on a maybe not so far future.
dwpollar
1st watched 1/25/2008, 7 out of 10(Dir-Luc Besson): Fun and entertaining live-action/animated movie based on a beloved book. The movie begins as live action explaining that a boy's grandfather is missing and the grandmother, played by Mia Farrow, tells the boy stories that the grandfather had told her about miniature people living in their backyard. Mia's character thinks that she is just telling "stories" but Freddie Highmore's character believes her and pursues how to enter that world to find grandfather and to save the farm that's about to be taken away. After magically being put into the underground miniature world, the story is animated and has a wide variety of memorable and funny characters to keep children and adults interested. What I liked about this movie is that the boy was very confident and understood his purpose from the beginning to the end. His purpose is also very noble and helped the entire family. Besides this, the movie was fun and had some danceable tunes and had a formidable enemy who represented all evil in the movie. The character's voices were not so recognizable except for "Snoop Dogg" playing one of the comic relief characters. Another area that was nice about the movie was the relationship between the main character and the princess, voiced by Madonna. He obviously liked her but they didn't go into an all-out romance(which is more realistic for people that age) and didn't fall into the silliness that could have happened with that. All in all, this was a wonderful fantasy with good morals and a good feeling in the end, and I did say it was also "fun."
AD
