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Children’s adventure let down by flat CGI, lacklustre direction and two-dimensional characters
Dir: Andy De Emmony. Starring: Paula Patton, Russell Brand, Michael Caine, Matthew Goode. PG cert, 110 mins.
For parents, Four Kids and It may look like salvation during this lockdown: a momentary distraction descended from the heavens. But Sky Cinema’s new family adventure seems built to be consumed and quickly forgotten. It’s an adaptation of Jacqueline Wilson’s 2012 book Four Children and It, which is itself a part-sequel, part-redo of E Nesbit’s Five Children and It, published in 1902. In the place of smocks and hoop rolling, we now get jeans and Nintendo consoles.
Ros (Teddie-Rose Malleson-Allen, sibling to Lily and Alfie) dreams of becoming an author, but struggles to find inspiration. “You just haven’t found your story yet,” she’s told. Then Nesbit’s book falls into her lap. She...