not horrible nor great

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

This did have the potential to be really, really good. But as an adaptation of the wonderful story by Norman Lindsey, it does fall short, and the result is a rather disappointing animated film. My main problem was the story. A lot was left out from the original story, and replaced with some very slow and pointless scenes and contrived sub plotting. The songs were unnecessary and rather uninspiring, none of them are memorable in any way, and the lip syching, especially with the character of Bill Barnacle, was very distracting. Not to mention the script, that was quite poor even for a kids movie, it just lacked a sense of fun, despite the valiant attempts of livening it up. However there are a number of good points, namely the terrific voice cast, that includes John Cleese(a bit loud at times but fine overall), Geoffrey Rush, Hugo Weaving, Sam Neill and an unrecognisable Jack Thompson. Another was that I personally thought the animation was pretty good, with the lovely Australian backgrounds, and the characters are at least likable. All in all, watchable but disappointing. It had the potential to be wonderful, but due to elements that didn't work, it is a hit-or-miss really. 5/10 Bethany Cox

As a French viewer with no knowledge about the original story, I would say this cartoon is like a UFO for a French audience. Both kids and parents were yawning after half an hour. As the movie was dubbed in French, the Australian accents were totally missed. The story upon which the movie is based is unknown to French viewers, so the movie just does not click. The baddie scared my nearly 4-year old, and I did not like the graphics very much. The various sequences in the movie just don't flow, you go from one character to another in what seemed totally random to me. I don't get the psychology of the cake either, but then I guess this won't prevent me from sleeping... I would be curious to read the original book, though. Anyway, I would not be paid to go see it again.

I watched the first half hour of this thing on Showtime this morning before I switched off the TV. The best bits were the water colour backgrounds. Story was s***e. No direction. Lots of meaningless action. All wasted and futile. The people that made this need to go back and Learn the craft of Storytelling. Moral: Don't try and upgrade a classic.Funniest bit: John Laws trying to act. Hilarious!

I really had high hopes for this film. Twelve million dollar budget, digitalanimation, star-packed cast (John Cleese, Sam Neill, Geoffrey Rush, Hugo Weaving, Toni Collette, Jack Thompson), fond memories of the Norman Lindsay story and the promise that it was going to mark a new direction in Australian mainstream animation.Well, five minutes in and I was ready to leave. Most of the audience (packed to capacity with kids and adults) looked fidgety and bored. It's hard to remember a film that fails so comprehensively.Looking forward to state-of-the art digital animation? Well you will have to be content with shoddy eighties-style Yoram Gross animation with a few digital lens flares. Yes, washed out watercolour backgrounds and sub-Disney style characters with bad inbetweening are back! Oh yes, and atrocious lip-syncing. At several points, Bill Barnacle's mouth doesn't even move when he talks!Want a good story? Well this confusingly paced film had most of the kids restless and scratching their heads as they tried to figure out what was going on. For adults and fans of the Lindsay original, it manages to tick-off the original in plot points and scenes without any of the warmth or character of the original. It also introduces new elements such as Bluegum's lost parents that please no one. It reminded me of the old Rankin Bass "animated classics"; exciting stories leeched of their quirkyness and originality through a pedestrian TV-style telling.Great voice acting and dialogue? Well if you can get past John Laws as Bumpus, the voice acting is okay. The dialogue however is awful. Poor old John Cleese is left to seemingly improvise old Fawlty Towers/Monty Python material while Geoffrey Rush utters some insipid stuff as Bunyip Bluegum. And yes, I know it's a kids movie!Top musical numbers? Well the musical numbers pop up at unexpected moments but are mercifully brief. Most of them are passable eighties fare with the exception of one sickly-sweet Celine Dion power ballad by Bluegum's mum. In a week, I will have forgotten how they sounded.The rest? Well did I mention the Saturday morning cartoon gags complete with musical "stings" or the TV-style direction (no swooping digital camera techniques here). Think of the The Silver Brumby and you'd be close..This is not a clever movie. This is a dumb TV cartoon writ large. It shows no love for Lindsay nor any understanding of what a modern kids movie should be.