Not sure how many of you have seen The Cell (Jenefer Lopez, Vincent D'Onofrio), but I remember it vividly. It wasn't a great movie, but it was visually haunting with some amazing cinematography. When I saw the trailer for this, I was quite impressed and when I saw that it was directed by Tarsem Singh, the director of The Cell, I was even more interested. It also has involvement of David Fincher and Spike Jones, presumably as producers. I got my bonus rewards from Best Buy, so I had $15 in certificates and this came out this week, so I picked it up.
This one is a little toned down compared to The Cell, but as expected, it is visually impressive. It is lighthearted and entertaining, but a little slow at times. It has a feel of Baron Von Munchhausen, as it relies on the imagination of the characters to present elements as the story is rolled out. The underlying story develops the characters while the "Epic tale" tells the overall story, and it works pretty well. The best performance is by the little girl - she does an amazing job in this role, which seems more like just being herself than anything. The other performances are rather average, with little character development for those who are part of "the story". Ultimately, it was a captivating movie, but the story didn't quite fully deliver the total package - the ending was a bit expected for me, though I still thoroughly enjoyed it.
Video wise, color is solid, PQ is excellent and the audio is very good as well (TrueHD). Note too, that this one is rated R. As a blind buy, I wasn't disappointed with this one. I'll give this one a 4/5 overall and would highly recommend it for your rental queue.
