I saw the film two weeks ago at a screening and Ryan Kelley and Hayden Panettiere are terrific young actors who are normally very natural on screen, but even their exuberance for the material did not transcend the syrupy goo of the dialogue. The always sublime Armin Mueller-Stahl's well modulated performance almost kept the film from making a resounding thud, but even his prowess was undercut by an overtly cutsie score by the usually talented Luis Bacalov. The music felt like every Disney-fied, cliché-ridden score cut together into a mish-mash of saccharine, sugar and Nutri-sweet.
Writer/director Eric Small who is the executive producer of Penn & Teller's fantastic Showtime series, "Penn & Teller: Bulls**t" made a sad misstep here. Perhaps being surrounded by such grow-up fare as Penn & Teller made him nostalgic for the silly daydreams of his youth, but tempering the sugary story with a touch of cynicism would have kept the wonderful premise of the film from falling into the marshmallow-fluff pit in which it currently wallows.
Writer/director Eric Small who is the executive producer of Penn & Teller's fantastic Showtime series, "Penn & Teller: Bulls**t" made a sad misstep here. Perhaps being surrounded by such grow-up fare as Penn & Teller made him nostalgic for the silly daydreams of his youth, but tempering the sugary story with a touch of cynicism would have kept the wonderful premise of the film from falling into the marshmallow-fluff pit in which it currently wallows.