World renounced actor Dustin Hoffman makes his first of few appearances here as there are not many of his films that I am a huge fan of not that I don’t like him or think he’s a bad actor he just doesn’t appear in many of the films that I really like. He appears now with tis 2007 kids’ movie, rated as 6.2/10 on IMDb and a mere 38% on the tomato. I will take this sentence to say that I am going off of the Tomato as it isn’t playing with a straight bat and I am convinced it is all down to who pays it the most money. We do need these stories with agenda doing positive don’t we. Anyway, I digress again, it did poorly at the box office so maybe the red one knows better after all and starred Hoffman (already mentioned) as well as Natalie Portman, Jason Bateman and Zach Mill who also narrates.
The story revolves around the Emporium full of weird and wonderful toys. There are two or three employees of the owner Mr (Hoffman) Magorium. A young girl (Portman) Molly who dreams of being a concert pianist, a muscle man book builder who was born in the shop’s basement (Played by Ted Ludzik) called Bellini, and a young kid who just turns up and does things around the shop called Eric (Mills). The store is magical and brightly coloured but one day a grey patch appears on one of the walls and Mr Magorium later decides that it’s time for him to retire and wants to leave the shop to Molly. Molly is also given a cube that will give her a life ambitions if she believes in it. She decides that owning a shop is not her chosen path through life and calls in Henry Weston played by Bateman who is an accountant. He is brought in to work out the best financial deal she could get for selling. How will the store and its magic keep surviving when the 200+ year old owner has had enough and his second in command has given up the will of fighting all seems lost doesn’t it.
This is a nice kid’s film with wonders and magic to keep them happy then it gets about saving what is already there as the store slowly dies without its human connection. Again, for this section I am going to use its alright line again. Would I leave the house to watch it probably not – watch it if it was on tv then yes if the football isn’t on the other side. So, there’s my take on it.
Comments