Absolutely unacceptable for children, unimaginative and locked in clichés

Rating: 1/10 (24 August 2009)

This movie was a great, great disappointment, and we are at a complete loss on how it has earned the generally good reviews everywhere. The story is a dull and hap-hazard patchwork of truly imaginative fairy tails, lesser imaginative children's stories and other bad copies of true classics. But more importantly, it is in absolutely no way suited for children. It is deeply rooted in the genre of horror movies and makes ample use of fear-producing settings and techniques. Starting off in a clumsily drawn situation many children can relate to - being misunderstood by their parents - it begins to address the topic of imagination as a helper in difficult situations. Here, a wonderful opportunity lay at hand to in pictures talk to children about the themes of emotional over-strain and retreat and the dangers that are associated with it. However, the movie from then on completely fails to make use of this possibility and regresses into an imbecile fight against a fuzzily, badly painted antagonist. This antagonist is anything but stringent, it switches back and forth between different clichés and it is obvious that the makers of this movie do not have any creativity in themselves at all to create a coherent vision. To make up for this lack of imagination, the movie is filled up to the rim with horror scenes, much too much for anyone below 14 at least, I would say. Even my partner and me were stunned by such an unnecessary use of fear-creating. The psychological insight of the creators does not go any further than randomly inserting some references to the constructive and destructive side of love. When you think that you completely wasted your money, it gets even worse, as the story is from a possible closing again forced into a second rising, giving additional prove of the complete loss of creative vision and inability of storytelling of the makers. It is a disgrace how this movie is presented as being in the tradition of Alice, Amelie, or others. It is not. Do not pay to be made sit through a complete failure.