Reviewed by Neil Davey
Stars Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Jason Bateman, Zach Mills, Ted Ludzik,
Mike Realba, Steve Whitmire, Madalena Brancatella, Oliver Masuda, Paula Boudreau
UK certification U | UK RRP £15.99 |DVD Region 2 | Runtime 91 minutes | Written & directed by Zach Helm
The problems with the resistible Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium are very clear. Helm — who has decent credentials as the writer of Stranger Than Fiction — goes all out for quirky charm again and misses by a country mile with this tale of a magical toyshop, its eccentric owner (Hoffman) and his assistant Molly Mahoney (Portman).
Molly should have been a composer but has had music writer's block for years and, instead, still finds herself running the Wonder Emporium. When Magorium decides that, at the age of 243, it's time to 'move on', he intends to leave the store to Molly but needs to get it valued and put his affairs in order. Enter uptight accountant Henry (Bateman) who's given the task of sorting through the Magorium paper collection and getting things straight. And around this 'action' lurks Eric (Mills), a hat-collecting Billy-no-mates of epic proportion, who spends all his time at the store rather than interacting with people his own age.
Can you guess how it all turns out? Well, you won't guess the specifics — and it'll take years of hypnotherapy to forget Portman clumping her way around the supposedly uplifting finale. She's no doubt meant to be signifying joy. Instead she's more badly choreographed carthorse. Add to that the morass of cliche and Hoffman's supposedly endearing oddball that's actually just Rainman the toymaker, and you're left with a depressingly average family movie that's approximately two per cent as cute as it thinks it is. Still, Bateman and the kid pitch it perfectly and earn the film both of its stars. The nature of loss is always an interesting angle for such films and maybe Helm deserves a pat on the back for trying to broach the subject. But in a year where Bridge To Terabithia managed to cover that subject in exquisite detail, break your heart and rebuild it again in a slightly improved, warm and fuzzy fashion Magorium was always going to suffer in comparison. The biggest problem though is that even in a year without Bridge To Terabithia, Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium is something of a stinker.
EXTRAS None at all