Highly Overrated But Still Good

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It is so daring, it is so ambitious, it is so thrilling and weird and pointed and powerful. I never knew where it was going.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Young Maria Merryweather (Dakota Blue Richards) loses her father leaving her orphaned and penniless. She goes to live with her uncle Sir Benjamin (Ioan Gruffudd) at the mysterious Moonacre Manor. Maria finds a world of ancient feud with the De Noir family. She is the last Moon Princess and she must find the magic pearls before the next moonrise or else a dark curse will doom the Merryweather family.There is a lot of history and backstory to go through. Based on book The Little White Horse, there's a lot of explaining for the first half. There is a lack of magic in this fantasy movie. The Moonacre Manor is supposed to be rundown, but it's ruined state has no atmosphere. It looked cheap rather than moody or Gothic. That goes for all the other sets and FX. All of it looked cheap. The story rambles on and on. It lacks adventure, tension, and importantly joy. The great actors can do nothing with this mess of material.

I haven't seen the film yet but I have read the book and this would seem to be the simplest way to answer many of the questions on the message board. For instance - yes, Robin and Maria have a relationship - they get married (which seems a bit creepy to me today as she would only have been about 14!!) and when she dies she strongly believes the little white horse will come to carry her away. I recently reread a reprint of the book and was disconcerted to see that it was a bit more religious than I remembered and missing all the illustrations. But still so cute!! If the film maintains the humour, mystery and wonder and the values of loyalty and friendship then it will have done a good job.Well, I have now watched the film and it only bears a passing resemblance to the book. I missed the vain Wiggins and Zachariah the cat (who was obviously as much a housecat as Wrolf is a dog!!) and Robin was supposed to be Loveday's son but it is still very entertaining.

Whatever you do, if you liked the book, don't see this movie. The whole idea of the book is rather ruined in order to make it appeal to people who didn't read the wonderful book. Starting with the fact that it isn't actually a fantasy book. So many things are added simply to make it seem more "magical" when that isn't what the book was about, and many things are just entirely wrong or tossed out so there isn't confusion when an idea was really quite simple. Everything is overdone to the extreme. The simple elegance in the description in the book is lost. I would only recommend seeing this movie if all you want is a run-of-the mill fantasy princess movie. I wouldn't say it has spark or shine at all. Don't expect anything new or a decent depiction of the wonderful story and world created by Elizabeth Goudge.

The set, and the props, the clothing, they were very well done for this movie. I loved watching some of the beautiful scenery such as the forest...and watching the unique clothes flow. However the only thing that I really didn't like about this movie was the acting and a little on the weak story. I think that Natascha McElhone, made a horrible effort on her part when acting the moon princess at the wedding, when she told them of the curse. It seemed completely off, her voice, even her emotion.But think about it, this is a movie for children, not for adults! Reviews and comments from adults saying how horrible the movie was to them shouldn't really mean all that much, considering the target audience. Girls love unicorns, boys love strong lions, all of these aspects were taken care of, and gives the child imagination & adventure. This movie is good for children.All in all, this movie kept my attention the entire way through, even if there was a few flaws. But for a kids movie, they have done very well.