On paper, The Secret Of Moonacre should have worked. It's adapted from a popular kids fantasy novel and directed by Csupo, a man who delivered the sweet and wonderful Bridge to Terabithia. The impenetrable, head-scratching, wonky plot has something to do with a last Moon Princess, Moon Pearls, Keith Moon and everything else moon-related (okay, maybe not The Who's former drummer but he wouldn't go amiss in the bizarre happenings afoot here). 13-year-old Maria (Richards) moves from London to the spooky country manor of Moonacre to live with her Heathcliff-like uncle, Sir Benjamin (Gruffudd). It's here she learns that Benjamin is involved in an ancient feud with the sinister De Noir family (headed up by Curry) who roam the wild woods surrounding Moonacre's vast grounds. Not only that, Maria is in fact the last Moon Princess and must discover her family's dark past before the 5000th moon rises and condemns Moonacre to the sea. ...Moonacre steals from a lot of fantasies with elements of The Wizard of Oz, Narnia, Willy Wonka and LOTR but fails to find any kind of originality of its own. The acting on show is poor: Csupo can't drag a performance out of his child star Richards (The Golden Compass) like he did with his kids in Terabithia, McElhone isn't at the races at all and Tim Curry is as camp as ever; only Gruffudd puts in a decent day's work. There's too much information to digest and at no point did I know what anyone was doing or why they were doing it. The biggest crime, however, is that ...Moonacre fails to generate magic and wonder despite the ample opportunities to do so.
