Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium: Review By Niteowl

I have a little brother and sister. They only see kids movies. So you can imagine how boring it is to sit through your average Disney crap like Beverly Hills Chiauaua, or other garbage, like Fly Me To the Moon. But, I usually end up seeing movies with them because anything can happen. So I am filled with delight by introducing the extremely underrated Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. I don't know why I wrote that top part, because I actually saw this in my English class a couple of week ago, but my kid brother and sister ended up getting this on dvd, so I re-watched it with them.

The marketing for this film SUCKED HORRIBLY! It looked so horrible, that when my English teacher reached into her handy dandy cupboards, filled with cool movies like Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans, and pulled this out, I yelled out "WHAT!"(in a bad way)

To my surprise, this was an excellent movie. Dustin Hoffman was funny as Mr. Magorium, Jason Bateman was funny as Magorium's newly hired accountant, and Natalie Portman was basically okay.

The story was like a book. It's about a toymaker named Mr. Magorium, who is 243 years old, came up with the invention of the lightbulb, and owns the coolest toy store ever! Everything in the store has a mind of its own, and the store has just about every toy in the world! Then Mr. Magorium announces that he's leaving, or dying, and is leaving the store in charge of Natalie Portman's character Molly Mahoney. The store, having a mind of its own, goes nuts, and then the film has one of the funniest staff meeting scenes ever. The film then resolves problems which I will not spoil, but will leave for you to find out.

Visuals were flat out stunning. They were cheesy, but they really looked like what you would find in a toy store. Directing was good as well, although nothing too special.

I reccomend this movie to any parent who hates watching movies like the Tale Of Desperaux with there kids (great book, horrible movie), and decide to pick this up at the video store for your family movie night or whatever. Only complaint is that the hospital that Mr. Magorium goes to uses only the colors yellow and white, which doesn't make sense for a hospital, because it would probably make most patients sick (although yellow is my favorite color)

Overall, a good kids flick that stands above most other kids movies. Grade: B+ (88% Points deducted for a few bad actors, and a few kids movie cliches, plus an ending that could have been better)