A flat, tedious movie although visually beautiful.

Rating: 3/10 (23 January 2006)

Although the movie is visually beautiful and quite true to the book, it is also very flat--lacking excitement and timing. I found it very tedious and I had really looked forward to seeing it. There were too many sudden transitions (for instance, the children going to battle in medieval dress). Characters that might have been extremely interesting were barely presented (the professor, the housekeeper) and the animal characters were reminiscent of cartoon characters in their delivery (making their interaction with the actors very superficial. The children, on the other hand, gave delightful performances although they were not given much to work with dramatically. It is hard to know if the script was superficial or the direction was lacking tension and drama--perhaps the fault lies with both.