Interesting film

Rating: 6/10 (14 March 2008)

This is an interesting film because it doesn't seem to follow the normal movie pattern. It is best if you take it as one long artsy music video or rock opera such as the Who's "Tommy," since literalists will hate it. You have to suspend A LOT of disbelief to make this work. The plot wasn't really special, but you could see how it intertwined among the three main characters. The ending is no real surprise and is highly predictable as this is obviously supposed to be a feel-good movie.
Now I said you have to suspend belief a lot, and it shows: A kid who never touched a guitar before starts pounding on it & makes music. Later he sees musical notes for the first time, and instantly starts writing a symphony. Now I know he's supposed to be a musical genius, but c'mon. Not to mention that he was put up for adoption without his mother's knowledge in the first place, and rather than being adopted right away (there's a long waiting list for adoptive parents), he's carted off to an orphanage where he spends the first 11 years of his life. Juliard music school in New York takes in a homeless child and teaches him music because some preacher tells them he's a musical genius. This is why this movie would work as a rock opera, but not as a serious movie. Luckily the music in just about every scene helps.
Robin Williams' character as a sleazy exploiter of young children is creepy, and he does the best he can with the character he's given. If this movie were not a sunny emotional gush-fest, some hints of pedophilia would probably have put an edge on his character which would have illustrated why the main character really needed to get away from him. I think the movie could have been a little darker like that and still could have gotten away with the story. It couldn't have been worse than seeing so many scenes of an Irish musician brooding about losing the girl he had a one-night stand with & fell in love with 11 years earlier. As it was, the Wizard's main fault was wanting to exploit the child's musical ability for his own financial gain.
In spite of the plot holes, anemic plot, and predictable ending, I actually did enjoy the movie. It's not something I care to see again, but it was worthy of passing a couple hours. It didn't hurt that they cast some eye candy in the form of Keri Russell. If she weren't in this movie I'd probably had hated it.