Bridge to Terbithia

That's what I went to see yesterday with Daniel and Everett and Erin after church. It was an entertaining way to spend an hour and a half, but I wouldn't call it the greatest movie in the world or anything - and for fantasy, definetely not up to the standards of Narnia or Lord of the Rings. Or Pirates of the Caribbean, which I guess technically qualifies as fantasy as well. Anyway, get ready for a movie review, though this won't be as long as Eragon (I hope!). If you don't want to know the end, don't read ahead, spoilers will be making an appearance.

The two main characters are Jesse (played by Josh Hutcherson), a farm kid with two older sisters and two younger sisters whose parents are havign financial difficulties, and Leslie, whose parents are authors and who lives next door. I think they'e both about 12 or 13 in the movie. Leslie, who is played by AnnaSophia Robb (I haven't heard or her either) has a very active imagination, so the two of them start to sort of build a world in the woods behind their houses. You get to it by swinging on an enchanted rope, and it's called Terabithia.

This is where my first big complaint comes in. There wasn't enough Terabithia. You saw a couple weird creatures, hairy vultures and dragonfly warrors and one giant (and a troll counts too, I guess) but there was no plot resolution. Apparently some Dark Master was trying to drive Jesse and Leslie out of Terabithia, but we never see him, we only have her word that he is. Basically all they do is sit in the treehouse talking and climb a couple of trees. And then at the end you saw a whole assembly of weird creatures - but no talk of anyone evil. It just didn't make sense.

Jesse is really quiet and shy and he's not great friends with any of his siblings and his dad seems perpetually mad at him for something or other, so he's sort of working his way out of this during the course of the movie. He also becomes friends with a teacher of his at school, the name of whom I can't remember but who is played by Zooey Deschanel. Anyway, Terabithia is developing and Jesse and Leslie are pretty much best friends and then -

Leslie dies.

Which shocked me practically out of my theater seat because she's an extremely likeable character and you never think that that could have possibly happened. It does eventually result in Jesse inviting one of his sisters into Terabithia and getting closer to his dad, but I still wish she hadn't died.

Altogether - meh. I did see a couple of good previews though, one movie coming out this summer called The Last Mimzy about some toys from the future a couple of kids find. I think it has something to do with Alice in Wonderland. Anyway, it looked like a movie I would like to see. Unfortunately also coming out this summer are Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's Ed, Shrek the Third, Spiderman 3, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and though I will probably not see Harry Potter or Spiderman 3 in theatres I likely will see PotC and possibly Shrek. Maybe even PotC twice. And I don't go to a whole lot of movies so I might end up not seeing this Last Mimzy one.

~Sil