Four children and their baby brother living in England at the turn of the last century discover a Psammead or Sand Fairy, a magical creature which grants wishes, often resulting in getting the children into scrapes. For this BBC version of "Five Children and It," based on well-meant but clunky special effects in other BBC productions and AnneW's description above, I was really braced for much worse, and was pleasantly surprised. It was in two parts, but both on one video, just about two and a half hours long. What can I say? So true to the book they listed E. Nesbit as the writer--as if she'd written the screenplay--well-written, superbly cast, and with almost every line of dialogue drawn directly from the page. I thought I'd caught them in just one error when Robert used a safety pin to puncture his grown-up baby brother's bike tires, but looked it up in Webster's and sure enough, the term "safety pin" has been around since 1857, and the book does not specify WHAT sort of pin. The Psammead was surprisingly well-done--not only well-voiced but expressive, reminded me of Yoda, very much a Hensonesque creature and no mere puppet. Special effects budget spent wisely. The movie covered every single adventure from the book with the exception of the "Indian fighting" episode, the least interesting and least politically correct. The part with the gypsies was left out of "Being Wanted," also no doubt for length and pc-ness. The only other omissions were strictly abbreviations for translating from print to screen, and skillfully managed, too! The set decorators and costumers knocked themselves totally out, especially in the castle sequence. Most or all of the costumes were copied directly from the illustrations with which I was so familiar! The special effect which impressed me most was the floating baby in the castle sequence. This was the most familiar illustration to me, as it was on the spine of our copy of the book, and I was a bit worried they'd botch it; I couldn't have been more pleased.
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The review of this Movie prepared by Cori
