5 Children and It (2003)

by Tristi Pinkston | More from this Blogger

10 Jul 2007 11:00 AM

"5 Children and It" is a fanciful tale set during the first World War. It starts out very much like "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." Five children (instead of Lewis's four) are sent to live with their uncle in the country while their father goes off to fight, and their mother goes to nurse the wounded. Upon arrival, they find that their uncle is eccentric, he has a housekeeper, and they are forbidden to enter a room. Sound familiar so far?

However, then we branch off into differences. Robert, the middle boy (Freddie Highmore) is a spoiled child - oh, wait, maybe that does sound like Edmund from "Lion." Anyway, he goes into the forbidden room, in this case a greenhouse, and discovers a door that leads down a twisting stairwell and out to the beach. The children wander down there to discover a strange creature, a Psammead - an ancient, wrinkled thing somewhat resembling a snail. They refer to him as "It," not knowing what else he is -- he tells them that he is a sand fairy, and they are entitled to one wish per day. What he does not tell them is that each wish will end at sunset, and that each wish will, in some way, go wrong, all to teach them a lesson.

At first the children go a little wild with their wishes. They wish for their chores to be done, only to find that clones of themselves have been appeared all over the house and are not only doing their jobs, but are breaking things too. The next day they wish for buckets of gold, so they can buy replacements for the things that got broken, but they are accused of stealing the money. Another day, they wish for wings so they can fly off and see their father.

True to It's warning, each wish goes wrong, but Robert insists he's not learning anything. This was a negative point of the movie for me - we're used to seeing Freddie Highmore play nice little boys, but in this film, he was a stinker and I didn't like his character. But as things grow more serious, the children learn to wish more wisely, work together, and not seek the easy way out of every situation.

The star of the show truly is It. Voiced by Eddie Izzard, his wry commentary steals every scene he's in. The worst acting was actually done by the uncle, who, I was shocked to learn, was played by Kenneth Branagh. I've never seen Kenneth do such a poor job.

Overall, this was a cute family film. It had a lot of clever moments, and if you ignore the Narnia knock-off, Kenneth's bad acting and Freddie's temper tantrums, you should enjoy it.

This movie was not rated.

Related Blogs:

The Chronicles of Narnia

Finding Neverland

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Learn more about Tristi Pinkston

I've been a blogger for Families.com since August of 2006.

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