How could anybody raise any money for this. Marketed as a Harry Potter/Jeunet ripoff, that piece of garbage goes out of its way to steal from any source of successful and/or creative popular material, only doing it wrong in an unimaginative, exploitative attempt to cash on people's (and especially children's) stupidity.
Nobody is spared, Grinn, J.K.Rowling, Del Toro, Burton, S.King, W.Golding... and a copious amount of French references, with Goscigny and Jeunet being the most obvious.
Modern and politically correct winks are included of course, the single cool and integrated black kid shows up when needed, pop culture references, and so on.
Any attempt at originality is ill-advised, if not completely, utterly sick.
CGI is everywhere it shouldn't be. Many visuals are good, but many times unnecessary CGI elements are shouting "look at me ! I'm a process" on the screen. Like a phony print on a building, things like that.
Needless to say, any decent performance (by the kids) gets drowned with the boat.
The whole mess feels like a cheap, unlicensed, toxic copy of a plastic smurf village set.
