The movie we took Mum to see today was Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. The trailer looked like a lot of fun… kinda like Willy Wonka took over Hamleys or something 🙂 But it was a bit off the mark somehow.
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The movie had a great cast which promised to be good… love Dustin Hoffman ordinarily, and Justin Bateman we adore from his Arrested Development days and well then there’s Natalie Portman, and well let’s face it… we’ve been totally loving Natalie since she before it was legal to do so after seeing her in Beautiful Girls. But somewhere they went wrong. Dustin Hoffman’s character has crazy annoying hair and an even more annoying lisp. Justin Bateman plays the hard nosed, hard working accountant, affectionately named Mutant, who for no apparent reason and with minimal character development, suddenly becomes human and befriends this odd little kid, Eric who seems to have no purpose in the film other than to reinforce the concept that they’re all a mob of misfits. And then there’s Natalie Portman’s character who they build up as a creatively blocked musician lacking in confidence and direction… and this seems to go no where! |
The whole story is about Mr Magorium (Hoffman) handing the toy store over to Molly Maloney (Portman) and the magical toystore is kinda pissed about this and doesn’t settle down until Maloney remembers that she believes in the magic of the Emporium – and therefore herself and her ability to run it – end of plot… fade to black.
Cute thing – a rather sad sock monkey that Angel seemed quite taken with for some reason and couldn’t stop talking about on the way home. Will have to see if I can find him one somewhere.
Uncute thing – that hideous frock they put the gorgeous Natalie in for the final scenes of the film. The whole way through she was looking young, cute and perky… then they chuck her in a frock that looks like it escaped from it’s previous life as a tablecloth. Go figure.
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