Le Secret des 7 volcans

There are only two reasons why i would waste my time writing about a movie. It is either because its brilliant or because it's a terrible waste of time! This movie falls into the latter category. Halfway into the movie, i find myself looking at the clock. Unfortunately, it didn't get any better. Wow, such great premise, how the hell did they miss the mark? The director is to blame here. It was so so lame and boring. The actors did a good job, though i would have to say that sometimes the reaction factor is kind of weak. Example, when Mr Jones was trying to heal Rachel, flames of fire came out of his hand, in reality any tom dick and harry would find this amazingly unreal and you would expect them to react in disbelief, but on the contrary, the kids are acted like they have seen this before. Wowsers! This movie gets a C from me.

First, find a highly original story such as a book by Maurice Gee.

Second, get a named actor (Sam Neill would do and he's a pretty good sport). Some aspiring young amateurs will come cheaply -- and they'd probably like an excuse to get out of school. If the young ones are meant to be sympathetic characters, so much the better if they're good looking.

Third, leave out all the originality of the story, and replace it with your favourite Hollywood formula, particularly ones with truculent teenagers. Keep most of the character names or you might be accused of originality of your own. Keeping the location might be useful, but not necessarily. Maybe not a good idea to change the location to New York because too many people know what it looks like, and it would cost too much to film there.

Fourth, get some nifty special effects. Fire always makes a good spectacle.

Fifth, get some cheap hair-dye to make some of the main characters' hair red, but don't mention what red hair has to do with the story -- maintain a bit of mystery.

And there you have it.

Easy.

I Went to see this movie to support New Zealand movies.

To my surprise I was very disappointed... Weta workshop did the visual effects which were OK but nothing very creative.

The story very lacking something and the movie ended very quickly and was very basic the whole time it just felt the twins were not twins they were friends having a Tiff.

The Special effects were very good but didn't save the movie in anyway way or forum.

this will be a movie you will forget straight away.

I will say that the actors did a great job which is why I gave 3 stars.

The first thing I faced when I heard of this movie were bad critics. Second, divided opinions of people who've watched this movie. I decided I should take a look and see for myself, being a fan of fantasy movies, and I didn't regret it, but I was not charmed either.

The first thing, the actors. Always sceptic about introducing new kids into the movie industry, I tried to keep it objective and on low expectations, and it turned out I didn't have to because Tom Cameron (Theo) and Sophie McBride (Rachel) were really good. They represented their characters on a high level of quality, and for that I congratulate them, since this is their first role in a movie ever. :) Seeing Sam Neill in this movie firstly pleasantly surprised me, and then brought me to the edge of disappointment since he acted like he didn't care of the success of this movie nor his reputation. The rest of the crew was OK.

Now the story. The plot has quite a lack of originality in the base of it, but some specific things are pretty interesting, which I won't reveal here in case you haven't watched the movie. The story is a bit slow at moments, but not too much, though it is kind of in fragments. Its development didn't come out well so the end comes suddenly. Btw, the ending scene is really the best scene in the movie.

The visual effects are well done, though there's a lack of those. The kids didn't use their powers much. The drones are scary, but the Gargantuas are nothing fearsome, and they should've been the scary of the scary since they're monsters ready to destroy Earth. The atmosphere is spooky, though a bit too gray and dull at times. I had a feeling I had to see something colorful and vivid after seeing this movie. I was grossed out a few times by some scenes, which is good since that was the point, so my opinion is that the visuals are very well done.

The music was keeping the tension the story didn't have at moments, so it came out a bit too intensive.

At the end, this movie is not a masterpiece, and definitely not for those who aren't fans of the genre, but it definitely isn't bad and unwatchable. Because of Sophie and Tom, this one has a 6 from me.

I remember reading the book and watching the TV series as a child, so when I saw this was out in the DVD stores I was excited to revisit a part of my childhood.

Unfortunately, this film compares poorly to the 80s TV series. The 80s TV series had a darkness and chill surrounding the Wilberforces that had shades of Doctor Who about it. A lot of the darkness and suspense is lost in this film. It spends a good 40-50 minutes before Rachel and Theo (and the audience) is even let in on the plot. Now this might be excused in some films, if the buildup is engaging enough, but it simply comes across as disparate events that seem to have no real bearing on the story. I felt that they felt obliged to include certain scenes because they were iconic from the TV series, yet they were divorced of all context in this film. Given the length of the film, the twins needed to meet Mr Jones earlier to bring everyone into the plot earlier and allow the suspense to build.

Overall, I would advise anyone to give this a miss and try to find the original TV series - some of the episodes are on google video.