Disappointing

Rating: 6/10 (27 January 2007)

I had high hopes for this movie because of my interest in mythology and fantasy. Perhaps for that reason I was bound to be disappointed. I liked the acting by the little girl, and all of the female members of the cast, and the special effects worked well, though by modern standards they weren't that remarkable. For me, the film fell flat in the story, which was unoriginal, and unsatisfying. I was also put off by the repetitive and gratuitous-seeming violence. (The film had some of the most unconvincing gunfire I've seen since I was a kid, and the Spanish soldiers might has well have been made of tin.) There were a great many places where visual details, and camera work could have helped take us more into the story-environment (there was some good work here too, but not enough for me) but fundamentally, if you're doing a story about a girl who is escaping violence through the exploration of the nether world, she should stay in that world long enough for her (and the audience) to forget the violence for a while.