1/10
Muddled whimsical fairy tale, with no discernible story; poorly scripted, directed and photographed.
16 November 2010
Muddle-city! It's hard to say exactly what this is about, because a clear story never really kicks in. It seems to sputter into life a couple of times, but mostly it's a collection of caricatures bumbling through a curious assembly of borrowed ideas, styles and themes, few of which stack up. At some points it's possible to imagine that this collection of whimsical clichés might make a good children's film, but the lack of dramatic shape, or of a convincing world for the characters to inhabit, would have children heading for the exit long before I did. Unfortunately, it's one of those films which annoy for its squandering of resources. I've never seen Ryan Kwanten so mis-directed, and wonder why some of the very experienced names attached to the film didn't notice that there was no clear shape at script, dailies or rough-cut stage. Perhaps they did notice, yet they still allowed the writer/director and producer to go ahead and spend millions of dollars in the hope the muddle could be assembled into a coherent whole. I hope a few people enjoy it, and that its authors take heed of the number of people who pay to see it, before they embark on their next work.
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