Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Summary:
An orphaned boy moves to an old mansion with his bachelor uncle. There are clocks everywhere so the noise might drown out the sound of ticking from the walls. The uncle’s next door neighbor is a once-powerful witch who hasn’t been able to perform meaningful magic in quite some time.
Additional Comments:
- There are very long stretches of boringness here. There was a sappy part in the middle of the movie that had me muttering “I hate this movie so much.” It redeemed itself for the most part by the end.
- The humor is sometimes on point and sometimes just tedious. (Like the third instance of the griffin poops)
- It’s well-acted but I don’t think there was much of a script to work with.
- Most plot points are predictable.
- The special effects are fine, very cool in most cases, but some of the choices were disturbing, like baby body only/adult head. That’s just weird, not funny, just weird.
- The big reveals at the end worked to a certain extent.
- Has one of the clunkiest titles I’ve ever seen in a movie or a book. Functional, not magical by any stretch.
Conclusion:
Strange, pre-Halloween, semi-for-kids movie with decent moral messages. Worth seeing once. Had vibes like Ms. Perigrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, but for some reason, I enjoyed that movie more.
Associate links to follow…
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Amazon Prime
Want to dive deeper into the battle of good vs evil? Check out Spirit’s Bane. Two guardian angels get on Satan’s bad side.
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