The Legend of the Five

I think Samuels had a decent concept here, and with the luxury of the backdrop of the beautiful Australian Blue Mountains, it should have been a winner. Overall the production let it down for me. The talent misfired all over the place but I will keep a watch on Gabi Sproule, something intriguing there. The rest, not so much, the 'lead' was very disappointing despite the LA hype. Obviously family favours through this production, sad given how many unemployed true professionals are available. But hey, it's a kid's movie so I was hoping my nine year old would enjoy it regardless. Unfortunately he found it confusing (I agreed) and too much with the CGI that could have been toned down, it jolts you out of whatever carriage the movie manages to generate. We didn't stay to the end so I didn't get to see how this was funded. I hope Samuels gets another opportunity with some better production support to get it to hang together in a coherent fashion. A misfire all round given some of the ingredients and the opportunity.

Firstly, it's a kids film. Just remind yourself of that when you watch it.My 10 and 13 year olds loved it. I did not. The characters were annoying and miscast. Javier Torres (played by Nicholas Andrianakos) was a useless character. Probably the hunk character for the girls, but I was hoping he would be killed off. Owen Clarke (played by Leigh Joel Scott) looked like a 30 year old guy. At least he knew things that helped. Kaylee Liu (played by Deborah An) was the arty type who 'grew up'. Yawn. Caitlin Fisher (played by Gabi Sproule) was the bimboesque girl that grew a backbone. She was the most interesting. Zoe Caldera (played by Lauren Esposito) is the lead character. Funny that her sister/mother is the Executive Producer and she is the co-producer. I think another relative is the 'best boy'. Her accent ranged from Australian to American, depending on the scene.

Once you resign to the fact that things don't make a heap of sense, feel free to enjoy the special effects, because boy I had a hard time understanding the flow of the story. The best part was I got a choc-top ice cream!

Aussies should steer clear of making anything fantasy or sci-fi, or horror, we cant do them well. Bad script, terrible and uninteresting characters, bad CGI / VFX. It was shot very well, Ill give it that. Actors were poor choices except for Lauren Esposito, she just passes but at least great to look at. Dont waste your time.

The movie certainly shows the love for fading in and out, and the stupidity of the characters/kids is unreal and resembles Japanese anime in extreme ignorance.

The director should go back to school as there is nothing intelligent about this movie. However, the actors are actually halfway decent for their roles despite being made to look like they have an IQ of 60.

The problem with the reviews written on this page is that 3 of four seem to be written by family members of Nicholas Andrianakos. "A Masterpiece" writes Jordan Andrianakos "the most outstanding part of this brilliant movie is Javier Torres played by the dashing Nicholas Andrianakos" Seriously the two best performances were by Gabi Sproule and Leigh Joel Scott. Unfortunately this movie is a very poor mashup of Jumanji and Lord of the Rings.