Jacey Bedford's Journal

This movie is not as good as it thinks it is. Visually it's sumptuous, but there's something lacking. The best childen's movies work for adults, too, but this simply didn't work for me.

The blurb says: Clara needs a magical, one-of-a-kind key to unlock a box that contains a priceless gift. A golden thread leads her to the coveted key, but it soon disappears into a strange and mysterious parallel world. In that world, she meets a soldier named Phillip, a group of mice and the regents who preside over three realms. Clara and Phillip must now enter a fourth realm to retrieve the key and restore harmony to the unstable land.

It's a relatively simple story with an unexpected twist, but sadly the only performance that comes close to being engrossing is Helen Mirren as Mother Ginger.