Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (AKA Natalie Portman and Jason Bateman Save The Day)
Posted on | November 26, 2007 | No Comments
This review was originally written on Epinions.com.
In Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, Dustin Hoffman plays Mr. Magorium, who I can only describe as a mix of Doc from Back To The Future and Willy Wonka. He is the owner of a magical toy store, where the toys come to life and it works as well as a daycare as it does as a toy store. Mr. Magorium is zany, yet uplifting. He’s a character with the volume turned up to the highest max. But his character becomes so annoying, that trying to suspend disbelief becomes hard. When the more normal and real characters like Natalie Portman’s Molly Mahony (known simply as Mahony throughout) and Jason Bateman’s Henry Weston appear, the movie becomes digestible again.
The story surrounds the transfer of the toy store from Mr. Magorium, who is over 200 years old and knows that it’s his time to die because he has run out of shoes, to Mahony, who is a classic pianist who is in a creativity rut. She loves the store, but believes that her life needs to be more than just running a toy store. She has to be convinced by Eric, who is played by Zach Mills, and later, negative accountant Henry, that her destiny should be in doing what she loves, not what she’s expected to do.
The movie works for a few reasons. Maybe the most important reason is that writer and director Zach Helm was able to get a film made that is a children’s film through and through. Disney films that are made for kids today don’t always have G ratings. Because of the allure for the box office dollar and drawing adults, most cartoons today are littered with sexual innuendo and adult humor. With this film, it’s a pure G rated film. That’s actually a fantastic accomplishment.
The second reason the movie works is because the story and characters are simple. The four characters I named above are on the screen for the majority of the movie. There’s no one else even worth mentioning, except the four of them. Who knew that Jason Bateman wouldn’t look much different from the character he played on Hogan’s Family some twenty years ago? The guy hasn’t aged a bit, and his charm works very well in this film. He’s simply likable and fits very well on screen with Portman, who may define likable. Portman’s Mahoney is wholesome, and is maybe the cutest goody too shoes in movie history in this film. Mills is great too with his goofy kid faces and if anyone ever wanted to do a life story on Alfred E. Newman, Mills is the perfect fit for the child version because of these killer ears that stick out like megaphones out of his head.
The story shouldn’t be so workable because of Hoffman’s over the top Magorium. But because of the other three, it does and it’s the kind of family movie that just makes you smile at the end, as long as you don’t take it too seriously. It’s sappy and takes the easy way out in certain situations to get tears, but compared to what’s put out there for kids today, give me Magorium any day of the week. Adults will have to put up with some eye rolling scenes, but at least we have Portman and Bateman. Not since Teen Wolf 2 have I been so impressed with the brother of Mallory from Family Ties. Just kidding.
Take the kids to see it and let the magical toy store take you back to when trips to toy stores were the most important trips of the year.
Tags: Dustin Hoffman > Jason Bateman > Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium > Natalie Portman
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