Just got back from seeing this movie, with my 5.75 year old daughter.
I have only recently begun to get the idea that this might be a very well known kids' book on the other side of the big pond, since watching an epispde of Malcolm in the Middle where Dewey is supposed to read it while in the "emotionally disturbed" class, and suddenly connecting that with all those Coca Cola adverts with the big train at Christmas theme. So I had no idea what to expect.
First of all, the animation is largely gorgeous. There are a number of set pieces throughout the film where the sequence design is just fantastic, for example the opening sequence where the boy is in bed and gets out was so realistically animated that I had real problems remembering that it wasn't live action (lots of motion capture).
And there is a sequence where a lost ticket blows through a pack of wolves, around a viaduct, gets snatched by an eagle and taken to its nest and fed to its chick, which spits it out and the ticket continues to romp around having its own adventure for a while longer. This is one of the most fantastic animated sequences I have ever seen - well, no doubt I have seen similar sequences animated, but trying to pass as live action. Being put in an animated movie where it doesn't have to fool anyone, the creators have really gone to town on it. My own personal favourite bit of the movie 
I expect this movie to be appearing in Imax cinemas - there are so many roller coaster / motion simulator sequences that it would be a natural. Somehow it wasn't a strong enough effect to set my motion sickness off though
As the animated characters go, they're a bit uneven. It's not particularly that some characters have been given a lot more attention than others, as happened in the Final Fantasy movie, but that the same characters are astoundingly lifelike in some sequences and kinda wooden in others.
Now the problem - I expected this movie (having not seen any reviews of it) to be suitable for my not-quite-6 year old. But she spent a significant part of the journey, which is full of hazards and peril, curled up weeing with her face buried in my shoulder while I tried to reassure her that nobody was going to get hurt and that nothing nasty was going to happen. Fortunately this is the first half of the movie, and the second half didn't scare her at all, but she was, for that unspecified amount of time, absolutely terrified - far more than in Finding Nemo.
Ywah, I should probably be more sensitive to her terror, as this is by far the most scared she's ever been in a movie and I was getrting close to the point of getting us out of there. But I tend to trust the filmmakers to target the audience right, and I'm trying to teach her to cope with things even though she's scared, and the peril was fortunately only in the journey. Once they get to the northern lights there are no more scary bits.
So, I have no idea how closely it follows the book. But my weepy one was laughing and happy and full of wonder at the end with all the fear of the first half forgotten, so I think it was a success. She's even made up a song about it which keeps the same words and tune each time she sings it.
But any of you planning to take small kids to see it, just be aware that there are bits in there which might scare them.
__________________
 Mallanox : "My mother was Irish and my father was an alien. I was an only child and I dress funny."
|
