Opening today in limited release in theaters in New York, L.A. and several other cities (not Phoenix); also streaming on demand...
The Secret Kingdom--A troubled family moves into a beautiful old manse. The early scenes here have an unsteady feel; the period detail (it's supposedly the early '60s) is somehow unconvincing, and the atmosphere almost seems closer to that of a '70s scary-house movie, like Burnt Offerings or The Amityville Horror.
But then the two kids (Sam Everingham and Alyla Browne) drop through the bedroom floor into a fantasy world called the Below. A tribe of armored talking pangolins immediately sends them on a quest across this land of chatty animals and Maxfield Parrish ruins to acquire parts of some magical thingy or other that will save the realm from some sort of shapeless evil. Something like that.
After that unpromising real-world beginning, this Australian family film, written and directed by Matthew Drummond, starts to take hold, with images of considerable fanciful splendor. Along with the pangolins, who have an endearing habit of dropping to their sides and curling up when they feel threatened, Drummond gives us a clockwork oracle operated by a tarsier-like creature, a mechanical lightning bug, a freaky army of clockwork-doll soldiers, a bickering two-headed pack rat turtle, a lair of giant talking gauntlets and an impressive dragon with a T-Rex-like body, among other striking, whimsical imaginings.
It's reminiscent of 1984's The NeverEnding Story and of the Narnia flicks, but The Secret Kingdom nonetheless has its own invigorating flavor. The kids--Everingham as the fretful brother; Browne as the carefree sister--are agreeable, and the film rings a touching twist on the tiresome "Chosen One" prophecy trope from stories of this sort; I appreciated that the ultimate criteria for a Chosen One here was simply friendship.
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