I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

While the plot is a bit confusing, the entire film is beautiful in its aesthetics and has a strong message for girls to take control of their own life and fight for themselves. Dakota Blue Richards is absolutely brilliant in her 2nd major film role and Tim Curry and Ioan Gruffudd add to the magic. Harry Potter fans may see some familiar imagery, for the novel it was based on "The Little White Horse" was a favorite of J.K. Rowling when she was a child. This film deserves much more attention and has much more depth than any of the flashy CGI effects shows at the theaters today.Read my full review: http://kingdomofcult.blogspot.com/2015/05/cult- movie-of-may-17th-secret-of.html

Young Maria Merryweather (Dakota Blue Richards) loses her father leaving her orphaned and penniless. She goes to live with her uncle Sir Benjamin (Ioan Gruffudd) at the mysterious Moonacre Manor. Maria finds a world of ancient feud with the De Noir family. She is the last Moon Princess and she must find the magic pearls before the next moonrise or else a dark curse will doom the Merryweather family.There is a lot of history and backstory to go through. Based on book The Little White Horse, there's a lot of explaining for the first half. There is a lack of magic in this fantasy movie. The Moonacre Manor is supposed to be rundown, but it's ruined state has no atmosphere. It looked cheap rather than moody or Gothic. That goes for all the other sets and FX. All of it looked cheap. The story rambles on and on. It lacks adventure, tension, and importantly joy. The great actors can do nothing with this mess of material.

Basically, this movie is about a young girl who moves to her uncle's house due to the death of her father. What she doesn't know that it includes a whole new world to her and she plays an important role in it.In my opinion, this movie was not completely horrible but filled with inaccuracies. At times I kept thinking to my self, "Why didn't he just do that?" An example came to mind when the young girl and an accomplice were found by the villain. They simply ran, or let's say jogged, away from him while he simply stood there yelling, "I will catch you!" Also, towards the end the Chef had miraculously said that he knew exactly where Maria had gone when Maria had never even mentioned any specific place she would be. She simply said, "I will know the place when I see it." And she was talking about one tree in a forest. A place filled with trees!One minute, the villain was in the forest and after another we see him in a scene a top an enormous cliff in some sort of temple. The group who were searching for Maria Merryweather were also in the forest when they suddenly entered the temple as well. Some stuff just doesn't make sense to me.The acting was below par. Dakota Richard's acting was acceptable compared to the adult actors. Juliet Stevenson put herself too much into the character that her expressions in specific situations were just awful. When this movie started out, I thought it had great potential. But the actors made the dialogue laughable and the resolution to the story was too much to bear. The scene with the horses and the wave was just completely random and extremely unnecessary. How the unicorn managed to solve the horrific conflict seemed a little too much. The setting was perfect for the story and the costumes were adequate for the time line but some aspects were useless. For example, Maria's tiny bedroom door that you almost have to crawl through. I cannot comprehend why that was necessary in the first place. Many more presented itself but none come to mind at the moment.To bring this review to a conclusion...I would recommend this movie to parents who want to entertain their kids with silly fantasy movies or just to show them a good time. Children would appreciate this movie. Overall acting was atrocious apart from the young Dakota Richards who continued to prove her skills and as for the story...It was a great story with a lot of potential but was shut down with the poor choice of actors, the horrible special effects, the humorous inaccuracies, and bad directing.If you have nothing better to do and happened to find this movie flipping through the channels, then it is an okay movie to pass the time.

We live in an age where literacy is on the wane. The reviews of this film clearly are from people who do not realize the book was produced in 1946 and was popular in an era when people commonly used their imagination and did not expect to be told what to feel as is common in film. It predates the books about Narnia(1950) but not The Hobbit (1937). This was an era when children's literature was in a renaissance that lasted for decades. I remember loving the atmosphere of enchantment set by the book when I read it as a child and was surprised to see it had been filmed. The caustic reviewers should inform themselves about this form of literature in order to know what they're talking about. I'd like to see the film despite the fact that film productions often deal with subtle nuances from books like Jack the Ripper performing surgery. The Narnia stories thus far are amazingly well done all things considered and there is a lot to consider.