The Secret Kingdom review – underground world with army of pangolins in spooky kids’ tale – The Guardian
A couple of imaginative flashes and a few quirky speaking creatures save this reside motion youngsters’ epic from whole boredom. However, like its title, this movie is generally bland and semi-forgettable – with scenes greater than somewhat acquainted from the fantasy again catalogue, including no actual flavour of its personal.
It’s set in Sixties Australia, the place Peter (Sam Everingham) is an anxious 12-year-old who’s simply moved to a spooky home within the countryside. On the very first night time in his new bed room, the ground rips open, swallowing up Peter and his little sister Verity (Alyla Browne). Their mattress careens Goonies-style down tunnels, touchdown in an underground world inhabited by a military of pangolins (a pleasant selection for navy mammals, with their armour-like scales). The pangolin basic greets Peter as a king, simply in time to save lots of the land from an evil pressure. However isn’t Peter only a scared child in a dressing robe?
So begins an epic journey through which Peter should remedy riddles, accumulate magical stones and discover his interior courageous. However in some way even this quest fails to inject a lot power into the film, which feels weirdly with out ambiance. It’s additionally pretty talky, exposition dragging a number of scenes into dullness. Nonetheless, there are flashes of invention, just like the second Peter arrives at a fort guarded by huge stone fingers straight out of Monty Python. Peter challenges the fingers to a recreation of rock-paper-scissors.
The Secret Kingdom is a movie with well-intended issues to say about childhood anxiousness and concern, however lacks a lot spark or enjoyable. Peter’s sister Verity can be pretty annoying (for causes that solely develop into clear in a twist on the finish, she’s an entire goody two-shoes). Nonetheless, for under-eights, too younger for Harry Potter or Narnia, this may work as gateway fantasy. I used to be irrationally irritated by Peter repeatedly utilizing the fashionable jargon phrase“suppose outdoors the field” – within the 60s! Little ones gained’t be so bothered.
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