La porte magique

This movie is a good one-time-to-watch film. You may bring your family to the cinema and you will spend a good time watching it in a relaxed atmosphere.

However, if you expect some mind-blowing plot or unexpected twists - this film will mostly disappoint you. In fantasy movies there is always a thin ice in terms of making the plot work in some "magical" world but you still believe it, and having some absurd world. This film is closer to the second variant. Sometimes you find yourself at the point when you think "OK, this seems to be stolen from Harry Potter", sometimes you are like "What the hell? What am I watching". This film is rather naive fairytale than a Lord of the Rings style saga, that you can watch over and over again and not feel yourself as a young kid forced to believe something just because it is said so in movie.

Thus, I would recommend going to watch this film. Just take it easy and turn off the movie critic inside of you :)

I haven't read the book so I can't judge this movie on that basis. It's a nice looking film with nice photography, there's no problem with editing or pacing. Its what you'd expect from this type of film. The cast was suitably solid but for me the highlight was Sam Neill: His was a stand-out performance, an absolute delight. He just stole every scene he was in and was loads of fun. However, the movie would have been better if not for serious problems with the sound mix. The music is so overwhelmingly loud it drowns out the dialogue to the point where you're struggling to discern what is being said over the sheer loudness of the music. You might as well turn subtitles on. How does such a serious blunder occur? It seriously detracts from what otherwise might have been a more enjoyable movie.

Paul Carpenter's day goes from a morning of disasters, with his toaster exploding and a random lecturer professing to know him, to a bizarre interview at JW Wells and Co, a somewhat unusual organisation.

This was one of those films that I was made to sit down and watch with the while family, an array of ages, the feedback was generally positive, personally I rather enjoyed it, despite it not really being my preferred genre.

I was told to expect something along the lines of Harry Potter or Extraordinary Beasts, in truth I could see no similarity at all, other than them being fantasy movies, family friendly fantasy that is.

Not especially exciting or particularly well paced, but oddly engaging and baffling, this film is so strange and weird, it just draws you in. You'll be scratching your head several times as you try to work out what's going on, just accept that it's slightly bonkers, and I think you'll enjoy it.

To summarise, it's very quirky, family fun, it's well acted and oddly engaging.

7/10.

Why do people who have read the book ever bother to view a film they know from the outset they will hate because - insert whiny voice- "it's not like the book". Why not save yourself the agony.

As a counterpoint I have read the book, and thought this adaptation was most enjoyable. You can't really describe anything without spoilers. Ut it bowls along with a great sense of humour -mfor some of which paying attention is rewarded.

If you haven't read the books give them a go as there are seven in the series and explore the idea in greater details. This will be good should get round to making a sequel.

I'm baffled a bit by the other reviews and was nearly going to not give this movie a go but I'm so glad I did! I watched with the whole family and even though it was longer than most movies my kids would sit through, they loved it.

It was so odd in times that it actually made the movie more fun to watch- there were several times we were laughing out loud at the fantastic weirdness of it all!

I'm someone who watches a movie almost every night and visits the cinema weekly and found this a really enjoyable watch so I would definitely give it a go if you're thinking about it and don't worry, all those things that seem odd in the beginning end up making sense in the end!

A great film - well done!

P.s I didn't find the movie that dark, there are a couple of scenes that might be a bit scary that my youngest (5) was a little worried about initially, but ended up being fine with.