The Fairy King (2002)

I would guess one of the dreadful things about being an actor is that you can't ever take your name off your work. Directors can hide behind pseudonyms, producers can blame the director, and everyone else can throw up their hands and blame everyone else for letting them down. The actors however are stuck there up there, on screen for all the world to see, unable to hide from the awfulness that surrounds them. And this movie is awful.Most of the blame lies with the direction - not that there appears to have been any, and a script that may well have been, judging from what arrives on the screen, little more than a rough outline, semi-improvised by the actors as they were shooting. The whole thing looks like it was shot in single, unrehearsed takes with no one having bothered to tell the cast and the few background artists what was going on or what they were supposed to be doing.In short it looks like an amateur production and I can't begin to guess at the behind the scenes events that left reliably professional jobbing actors like Corbin Bernsen*, Glynis Barber, and Malcolm McDowell so helplessly adrift; I occasionally work with youth drama groups and have seen more conviction from bored High School kids than is on display here. Still, I guess the principals all got a nice holiday in South Africa out of it - though I don't suppose anyone involved in this turd will be including any part of it in their show reels.Having said all that my hyper-imaginative, six year old, fairy loving daughter was hooked throughout and genuinely terrified during the 'climactic' trapped-in-the-mine sequence, and even my four year old got 'the message'.*Bernsen also has to suffer the indignity of most incredibly underwritten, non-specific terminal disease in the history of movies since the Production Code of the thirties prevented anyone from mentioning the clap.

Maybe people do not like this movie, but my 10-year old son really likes it and has already seen it a few times, each time commenting on it and telling me about it endlessly. Although the story might be slightly lame and predictable, it is a regular feel good movie with lots of slightly moralistic moments, it is better then many other movies in the same genre I've seen. The storyline is indeed thin but since it is a fairy tale, that is part of the fun. The children act well, there is enough suspense in the air to stay interested for the whole time and in the end things do not seem what they looked like. In short, a family movie, well fitted for dreamers like my children.

OK, I've seen much worse from Malcolm McDowell in recent times. This is no classic, it is in fact an "ok" kids movie. I think that's who it was aimed at... "kids". The story at the beginning was not "unintelligible, I understood it easily. The reason for the bamboos and palm trees in the English forest is because it was filmed in South Africa, but set on the Isle of Man, a small island in the Irish Sea between Ireland and Britain. The origin of the island is explained in the story at the beginning. Anyway, it will not strain your brain, but you also won't be enticed to run to your local video store to buy a copy. But the kids might like it.

Unbelievable lame production, worst special effects and horrible story line, the worst by far of any pictures I have ever seen. If you need a reference for lame, this is it!!!! Malcolm McDowell and Corbin Bernstein should really erase this from their portfolio!!!