( 14 reviews )
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Posted: Jun 16 2009
I didn't read the original book but I can assure you that the movie is quite entertaining and ideal for children. With no rating, the film was made for television for British audiences. The main character is played by Freddie Highmore who was the star of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." He does an excellent job in playing the boy who wants to find his father who is off at war in France during World War I for the British Army. He and his four siblings take a train to a seaside British town where they will spend the remainder of their time with a strange, author uncle played by Kenneth Branagh and his equally strange housekeeper, Martha, played by the wonderful Zoe Wanamaker CBE (who will be a Dame one day, I'm sure). They have to deal with a housekeeper who forgot the day of the week and their cousin who is not so friendly and regards his cousins as strangers. They are warned not to go into the greenhouse by Martha. Of course, they go and make a discovery where they go to the beach where is sunshine and a sand fairy known as It with the voice by the wonderful Eddie Izzard. It's a charming family movie. I showed to middle school students in New Jersey and they enjoyed it. I knew that they would. Well, the sand fairy gives three wishes to the children and they don't always work out right, do they?
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Posted: Mar 21 2009
Cute little movie :) I enjoyed the book as a kid and was delighted by the fun of the DVD just a few weeks ago.
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Posted: Jan 16 2009
5 Children and It / B0009S4ILA *Spoilers* If you haven't read Nesbit's book, 5 Children and It, then likely this review will mean little to you and you will find better information in some of the other reviews. If you are like me, however, and remember Nesbit's charming tale from childhood, you may be considering this movie based on your love of the book. Do not be fooled. This book jettisons everything lovely about Nesbit's tale in favor of a blatant Narnia rip-off that is painfully obvious. Like Narnia (the movie, not the book), the movie starts with the children being shuffled off to the countryside in a train, longing for their parents and their familiar surroundings. The countryside house looks like a replica of the Narnia film house, and the sandpit with no sea (which the children find so pointless and boring) is not here. We'll get to that later. The house caretakers are, a la Narnia, quirky and old and eccentric. A good deal of film is wasted on this portion of the movie, detailing how boring it is at the house, how much time is to be spent on maths, how long the chores lists for the children is. There's a abhorrent cousin added here for unnecessary conflict. One day, on a rainy day, the children are bored and cooped up in the house and they find a magical doorway to another world. You'll note that 0% of that is in Nesbit's book, but 100% of that statement describes Narnia. Fine. The other world has a luxurious beach, complete with a large ocean, and the children take this in stride - no disbelief, no wonder, no worries. When they unearth "It", the voice......stings. "It" sounds like...Eddie Izzard. There's no other way to put it. (Eddie Izzard is also a voice in the Narnia series. Do we see a pattern here?) It wisecracks, It sounds like a wise guy. When the children feign disinterest in It, he practically begs to be paid attention to. And the whole twist of the book, the drama of "Is It ruining the wishes on purpose?", is immediately tossed to the winds (and incorrectly) by making it very clear with supernatural spying and smirking that, yes, It is ruining the wishes deliberately and on purpose. When I tried to enjoy this movie apart from the radical changes in the storyline, I found I could not - the dialogue is boring, the action predictable, and the story "twists" are painfully bad. I don't doubt that a small child may like this, but if you're looking into this for literary nostalgia, as I was - Stay Away! This version provides a closed caption option for the hard of hearing, but there was nothing worth hearing, in my opinion. I do not own this movie - I rented this through my Blockbuster Online account - and I most certainly will not purchase a copy for my home library.
