England, 1940: When bombs trap eight children in the cellar of their orphanage, their teacher, Miss Shaw, reads them a story. As the tale unfolds, they are magically transported to a timeless, mythical island, where they witness the story of Darkness and Light, and of how their union and their conflict produced the Iris Warriors, the seven colours of the rainbow which imbue the world with colour. As the candles burn low and bombs continue to fall around them, Darkness, like a black widow spider, seeks on the destruction of her colourful children. Miss Shaw and the orphans begin to fear that neither they nor the Iris Warriors will survive the encroaching darkness.
First thing to say is the lovely Jessica Brown Findlay does a cracking job as Miss Shaw. The kids also aren't too shabby at acting, and they all put some effort in.
Sadly, they were let down by a terrible screenplay and some very poor editing and directing.
The ballet, which was at least 80% of the film, was good enough, and colourful, but I have seen 16 year olds do better. However whether it was good or bad is largely irrelevant because it was promoted as a family fantasy/musical. No mention of ballet, which in fact dominated the entire film.
I'm sure there's a decent moral to the story and it might help kids learn colours, or to not be afraid of the dark. But as a film it left me cold aside form the great acting. I gave it a 3 overall which is a shame.
