What a shame. I so wanted to enjoy this movie. But it failed in every conceivable way.
It had the basis of a good yarn - 4 young male orphans sent on their first holiday by the sea. Their hosts were stalwarts of the church and lived in a small cove with 3 other families right on the sea. The youngest, Misty, overhears the young couple discussing adopting one of the boys and from there on in it is a competition to win the affection of the couple. Sounds good - throw in a beautiful location (South Australia) and an adolescent love interest and it all should have added up to more than it did.
There were, to me, many shortfalls. The adult characters were incomplete, un-rounded, almost cardboard cut out (with the exception of Skipper, the female church stalwart who is the kids' host). The soundtrack (other than the 60s pop music) was risible - sweet and sickly and wholly inappropriate - result being it was too intrusive and mawkish. Mix the sweet and sickly soundtrack with long shots of the stunning scenery and even that became dull and boring. The plot clunked along from one scene to the other, badly edited and without any smoothness or apparent connection. Decisions were made in isolation with little development. It all came across as unreal and unbelievable. And as for the apparitions and the last scene involving the boys as adults was laugh out loud absurd - half the audience certainly thought so when I saw it - howls of sniggering and laughter.
Shame really - as I said, wanted to enjoy it for a number of reasons - its Australian, its a good a story, I wanted Daniel Radcliffe to set himself up post Harry Potter (and he actually didn't do a bad job - the most convincing scene in the film involved adolescent embarrassment between him and Teresa Palmer) etc.. But no matter what, I have to be truthful and place this film alongside 'Inside Paris' as the worst films of the year.
It had the basis of a good yarn - 4 young male orphans sent on their first holiday by the sea. Their hosts were stalwarts of the church and lived in a small cove with 3 other families right on the sea. The youngest, Misty, overhears the young couple discussing adopting one of the boys and from there on in it is a competition to win the affection of the couple. Sounds good - throw in a beautiful location (South Australia) and an adolescent love interest and it all should have added up to more than it did.
There were, to me, many shortfalls. The adult characters were incomplete, un-rounded, almost cardboard cut out (with the exception of Skipper, the female church stalwart who is the kids' host). The soundtrack (other than the 60s pop music) was risible - sweet and sickly and wholly inappropriate - result being it was too intrusive and mawkish. Mix the sweet and sickly soundtrack with long shots of the stunning scenery and even that became dull and boring. The plot clunked along from one scene to the other, badly edited and without any smoothness or apparent connection. Decisions were made in isolation with little development. It all came across as unreal and unbelievable. And as for the apparitions and the last scene involving the boys as adults was laugh out loud absurd - half the audience certainly thought so when I saw it - howls of sniggering and laughter.
Shame really - as I said, wanted to enjoy it for a number of reasons - its Australian, its a good a story, I wanted Daniel Radcliffe to set himself up post Harry Potter (and he actually didn't do a bad job - the most convincing scene in the film involved adolescent embarrassment between him and Teresa Palmer) etc.. But no matter what, I have to be truthful and place this film alongside 'Inside Paris' as the worst films of the year.