Le Voleur de Venise

I just want to say that I adore The Thief Lord book and when I found out they made a movie from it, I almost fainted with joy. The story's about little Bo and his older brother Prosper. Their mother died and they are placed under the care of their Aunt Esther and her husband. Aunt Esther only wants Bo because of his angel face and plans to place Prosper in a boarding school (it's an orphanage in the movie). The siblings refuses to be separated and runs away to Venice. There they meet Scipio (aka Thief Lord) and he offers them Stella, an old rundown theatre, as a home. There they meet other orphans like them: Hornet, Riccio, and Mosca.

Bo and Prosper's aunt and uncle goes to Venice and hires a detective named Victor to find them, because they knew how much the boys love Venice, from the stories their mother told them. There's a souvenir shop owner by the name of Barbarosso and the orphans sell the treasures that Scipio steals to him. Barbarosso has a costumer that wants something precious stolen and the Thief Lord accepts the job. It's a wooden wing that belongs to the merry-go-around of the Merciful Sisters, claimed to do magical wonders. If I continue, I'll spoil the delightful surprises.

After seeing it, I was disappointed. What happened to the characters? Where's the sparkle? The characters seem shallow comparing to the ones in the book. The movie really did stick to the plot of the book but it seems they were so obsessed in keeping the story line just right that they forgot the characters. Plus, the English accent was so thick that I had a hard time understanding what they were saying.

There are wonderful scenes in the movie that really shone forth. I love how Bo and Prosper met Scipio, the camera following him crawling on rooftops. The awesome escape the gang made after Victor found them in the Square. Victor and his mustache collection that he keeps inside his jacket. The beautiful mask shop.

Maybe I'm just too faithful to the book. This movie will be great for those people who haven't read it yet.

Cornelia Funke's novel has been turned into a very good "family" film. How I hate to use that term but unfortunately its true. This is the story of a couple of orphans who high tail it to Venice in search of the magic that their mother always spoke about. Their they fall in with the "Thief Lord" and his band of orphans who steal in order to survive.

This is a really good movie. I really do like it a great deal. The film is well acted by all concerned. It has great effects and is extremely well made in pretty much every area. And that is what was wrong with the film, it looks too good. Everything is picture perfect and neat. I don't think I've ever seen a film where Venice ever looked this neat and clean. It takes the film out of being very real to being a a bit of lets put on a show. Its a grand and very enjoyable show, but its a show who's technical excellence keeps you at arms distance. Maybe its just a bit of disappointment on my part, I wanted to fall into this film and enjoy it from on the inside, instead I was forced to see it through a looking glass of picture perfect perfection.

Still see this movie. If you have kids sit them down and show them this movie, it will keep everyone entertained. Its a film that people should be seeing and talking about since its too good to have get lost and disappear.

7.5 out of 10.

'The Thief Lord' is an enchanting little film that will keep people of all ages occupied since it's executed in a manner that isn't too childish or sugary. Based on fantasy novel by Cornelia Funke, the film centres on fourteen-year-old Prosper and six-year-old Bo, orphaned brothers who face being split up by their cruel aunt and uncle who intend to dump the elder boy in a children's home while they adopt the younger child. The boys flee to Venice, a city their mother told them was magical, where they are befriended by the mysterious Thief Lord and his band of street waifs. Stealing to provide for themselves, the children's lives are about to take another extraordinary turn as the Thief Lord's secret is unravelled and they discover why Venice truly is a place veiled of magic.

The child cast in this film all give decent performances and manage to carry the film well, since it is very much a film that focuses on their characters. Rollo Weeks' Scipio is portrayed in a manner that shows him to be a less flashy, more troubled hero than Harry Potter of the films (an entirely different character to the Harry of the books). Aaron Johnson is perfect as Prosper, a young teenager caught between enjoying his own childhood and providing a parental figure to his brother while wee Jasper Harris was utterly adorable as Bo, proving that very young actors can still be talented. Their young co-stars of George MacKay, Lathaniel Dyer and Alice Connor are equally as effective in their roles. And the young cast are well-supported by their adult co-stars, particularly Jim Carter as the clumsy Victor and Alexei Sayle as the slimy Barbarossa.

As an adaptation, 'The Thief Lord' is quite loyal to the books with the characters and the main plot remaining largely unchanged. The story is depicted in a manner that is involving and will endear the audience to the young characters and the musical score fitted the mood of the film perfectly. However, there were a couple of flaws, such as the scenes towards the end with the new 'children' (I don't want to elaborate too much in deference to those who haven't seen the film) were a bit too slapstick and didn't suit the rest of the film while the new version of Scipio should probably have been played by someone else since it just looked like Rollo Weeks with a bit of make-up on. And perhaps it should have been established where Proper and Bo lived previously so the audience aren't left wondering why the citizens of Venice all speak with English accents.

That said, I found 'The Thief Lord' a charming film that should appeal to all ages of the family. It's a shame it's so underrated and received little acknowledgement in the UK since surely we should be supporting our talented home-grown young actors and be eager to show the world that British child acting doesn't begin and end with the Harry Potter cast.

The Thief Lord was released in my country a couple of months ago and for some reason this movie almost immediately caught my attention. A German family adventure/fantasy movie with English language and with English actors – all of that seemed quite unusual and therefore interesting to me. At the same time I never heard of Cornelia Funke's novel of the same name so I didn't know exactly what to expect from the movie.

I watched Thief Lord today and actually I liked it. It was really fascinating to see something fresh and different from typical and often annoying Hollywood family stuff. For young ones Thief Lord is an enjoyable family adventure with talented young cast against the background of one of the most beautiful cities in the whole world, Venice. For grown-ups besides that it's a story of bitter loneliness and sometimes misunderstanding which unite most of the characters. Two brothers, fifteen years old Prosper and much younger Bo, after death of their parents are separated. The younger goes to the old childless relatives and Prosper has been sent to an orphanage. But brothers can't live without each other and for six years old Bo Prosper is the only person who cares about him and loves him so much. Desperate, they run away. They have nowhere to go in the whole world and they are heading to Venice, the city that their mother loved so much. But the city is not welcome to runaways with no money and only unexpected help of a mysterious boy, who called himself Thief Lord and saves them from more troubles. Bo and Prosper join him and his team of orphans who find a refuge in a deserted movie theater. Soon our heroes learn that ancient city is full of surprises and what's is more that some strange magical things can happen there. They become involved into rather unexpected events and lives of different characters collide in Venice. We meet a lonely wife and husband, who also heading to Venice, trying to find a runaway child, who was merely a way to suppress their own loneliness, a lonely detective, who was hired to find Bo and some other characters. However, finally for many of our heroes resolution salvation of their personal problems will come in a rather unexpected way for each other.

But the loneliest and most suffering from that is mysterious Thief Lord himself who is trying to keep his secrets inside of him. This key character is playing by Rollo Weeks, who looks very good in his rather complicated part. Both Aaron Johnson (Prosper) and Jasper Harris also left very positive impression from their acting, self-reliance and naturalness. Despite rather short running time of the movie the development of most main characters is not bad. We know enough about them to feel sympathy or antipathy to them and we are not indifferent to them, which is very important for such a story. The acting among adult cast was also not bad with most memorable and likable performance from Jim Carter as Victor.

Thief Lord in the beginning the movie is fast paced and probably a little too short but mostly it's exciting well-filmed film with interesting and original story. The soundtrack one it's own looked very good and it's a very good addition to visual part even if sometimes the music is abstracted from what we saw on screen. And let me to say that visuals for such low-budgeted production were also not too bad. If you are looking for a good non-American family adventure film on English language as an alternative for Hollywood production featuring talented cast, probably you would be unable to find better choice than Thief Lord. Also it's worth to notice that the movie mostly successfully avoids typical and clichéd for American family films crude humor and language.

I know possibly I'm too generous and surely Thief Lord is not a flawless masterpiece but I rated it 9 out of 10. Unfortunately such enjoyable and beautifully shot family movies so rarely appear in our movie theaters or video stores.

And the last one thing that I almost forgot to mention. The title song "Orphan skies" is pretty cool and I liked it very much.

I loved the book, so naturally I wanted an accurate adaptation. The movie was a wonderful translation from book to film although of course there were a few minor details that I was disappointed about. It was also very, very good for a low budget movie. The characters were just as lovable, if not more, on screen as they were in the book. The acting was good for the most part although at times it could get a little dull, and at times a tad overdone, but still it was completely believable. Some parts were quite touching and others were hilariously funny. There was just the right balance of humor and seriousness to make it grounded and interesting at the same time. It was creatively done and very entertaining. And I would still recommend it to you if you haven't read the book.