I was loving it before it opened, then my fond wishes dashed- crap movie!

Rating: 2/10 (11 June 2011)

I was really expecting something much better than this. I read respected reviewers all ooo-ahhh-ing about the Spielberg touch and the old-school Hollywood 80s magic making a comeback here. I must say I saw none of that.
What I saw was dim, clumsy, and amateurish. The characters were unappealing. Of the "corps de kids," so to speak, I wouldn't have minded terribly if ALL of them got hit by a bus and disappeared, they were so unpleasant and whiny. The only exception I can remember is the kid called "Joe." While the others are played by youthful actors who are without doubt fine young people, the characters they portrayed, the behaviors the adults in charge of production demanded that they engage in, were unattractive.
I was SO on this film's side! I was cheering it on, willing to make all kinds of allowances in order to support its artistic flair. Truth is, this film seemed to be about on the primitive level of an early 1960s kids' TV show. I needn't have worried about the flair- there was none.
The deliberate attempt to bring on a Spielberg vibe was ham-fisted, clumsy, and embarrassingly obvious at all times. There were passages in the movie where various Spielberg shticks were imitated, especially places where there was frenetic camera action and lots of Voice Over. For example in one puzzling 20-minute stretch the kid actors in this movie were sounding EXACTLY like the pint-sized crew from The Goonies, even the two "fat kid" characters from the two movies were in sync.
I don't ask sci-fi or fantasy to make sense outside of its own world. But there is a degree of internal logic, or artistic coherence, that is a minimum requirement for a human being to even follow the story and make sense of it. This movie lacked such a minimum.
I am not angry at all- I am more disappointed and puzzled by this movie's poor quality than anything else. Seriously- it is BAD.