An average movie

I saw this with my wife and the kids when it came out in theater. Following the success of 'The Lord of the Rings', 'Harry Potter' and 'Narnia', they started to adapt many fantasy books into movies but, even though a few were successful, most of them failed and were forgotten pretty quickly. This flick was one of those. First of all, I must say that it was not that bad and actually pretty good. It starred Freddy Highmore who was pretty popular back then and the rest of the cast was actually pretty cool (Mary-Louise Parker, Nick Nolte, David Strathairn, Seth Rogen, Martin Short). I think the main issue with those movies is that they try to mix our World and another Fantasy world. As a result, you waste a lot of time during some boring introduction until they finally get in this other dimension. I mean, in a book, it might not be a problem because you can develop those elements but, with a movie, it is just way too much exposition. That's one reason why 'The Lord of the Rings' is the best of those adaptations,. Indeed, with LOTR, right from the start, you get into Middle Earth instead of spending 30 minutes or more with some modern kid who eventually get stuck into another world. Still, this movie remains a decent and entertaining familly feature and it is definitely worth, especially if you like this genre.

6/10