worst piece of junk i ve seen in a while, terrible acting (acting??even vanessa redgrave is pitiful here), and they managed to make Venice look like a cheap touristic trap. racist depiction of the poor scared black kid with a thick African accent, haven't seen such characterization since the 30'soverall, its a shame that so many kid's authors take kids for idiots.one hour and a half of absolute boredom, unfunny jokes all over the place , predictable turns, not a trace of action or , god forbid, violence (yes!kids love violence!!or i did, growing up in the 80's..)avoid at all costs

To like this I had to overcome two hurdles. In story detail, the youngest, Bo, has a major personality disorder. Even more, in story structure it feels like a very low budget, beginner level, feature mixed with high budget visuals and good acting and etc, too big a gap. The flow is not smooth but feels jumpy in a way that feels amateur. The jumpy problem does calm a lot as the feature progresses. It is worst near the start. First viewings I assumed that was the storyteller maybe saying something about the storyline, that the main characters are effectively all cut up into pieces. I find that sort of storytelling technique to get in the way, though it is used in some big budget modern stuff. TTL, a professionally made feature. * I also gradually found this story to be a fascinating mixture of orphans needing to break rules of good conduct just in order for them to survive. As such I experience it as rooted in issues in everyday reality, for me at least. There are turns and twists. One picture of their plight is shown, then suddenly upturned as their leader is shown to not have been too honest with them, a major breaking of the rules of good conduct. Then things go upside-down again as a science fiction element dominates the story. Oh so very day to day reality. I think of the phenomena as rooted in having been thrown into the sea and most of this story is set in Venice. * This story has Rollo Weeks, the little vampire in The Little Vampire (2000), in the title role. The bad guy of that story, Jim Carter alias Rookery the vampire slayer, as baddie who turns goodie, Victor, in this one. The biggest plus for me is Alice Connor, playing orphan Hornet. I first noticed her in The New Worst Witch, in which she has the title role. Younger relative of Millie, the original worst witch, and all of Millie's flaws are there and growing in Hettie. TTL is Alice in a different role, some typecasting in role type but a very different persona and this has a nice ending for her, too. Hornet gets her man. * This feature did encourage me to read the novel. I can like the feature despite the difficulties that I first experienced from the story telling style.

A friend of mine made me read Thief Lord over a year ago and I fell in love with it. Being the crazy internet freak I am I googled the book looking for fan sites, instead i found out about the movie. In my computer class at school I found (gasp) the trailer!!!!! But it was in German and I could not for anything find it in English. But I didn't care! All I could do for the rest of the day was gush about scip's HOTTNESS!!!! I was so mad that I couldn't find the movie in theaters but I bought the DVD the day it came out (March 14 best day ever!!!). I watched it and was pleasantly surprised. I expected it to be butchered like the Harry Potter movies but it was fantastic! So many of the scenes are word for word from the book! Nothing is better than that for a true fan of the book. All of the cast was excellent! especially Rollo Weeks as Scipio and Aaron Johnson as Prosper. (to whomever made this decision: me and my friends greatly appreciated the scenes with Prop with out a shirt.) my friend parents said it is one of the few movies that the entire family can enjoy. I watched it with a group of people age 2-42 and everyone loved it. (at least we assume the little people liked it though they arn't very good at voicing their opinions) I would recommend this movie to any one! It's so much fun and was the beginning of soooooo many inside jokes!

Do we rate movies like we do commercials? Then a young pup nibbling on the leg of a teenage stunner should be rated 11!Anyway, this movie is not bad, but it's not very good either. It's average for its time, budget and genre. It is basically a children's story, with pretty good acting and casting, but with bad directing and scripting. Someone probably took a children's book and adapted it, then left the film to the actors.Conclusion: if you are looking for a nostalgic reminder of a childhood movie, then watch it. Else you will just get bored by an outdated and pretty pointless film. I am not against these kind of movies, but I've seen movies with children and for children that were way better and impressive.