Good idea lost in the noise

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

To like this I had to overcome two hurdles. In story detail, the youngest, Bo, has a major personality disorder. Even more, in story structure it feels like a very low budget, beginner level, feature mixed with high budget visuals and good acting and etc, too big a gap. The flow is not smooth but feels jumpy in a way that feels amateur. The jumpy problem does calm a lot as the feature progresses. It is worst near the start. First viewings I assumed that was the storyteller maybe saying something about the storyline, that the main characters are effectively all cut up into pieces. I find that sort of storytelling technique to get in the way, though it is used in some big budget modern stuff. TTL, a professionally made feature. * I also gradually found this story to be a fascinating mixture of orphans needing to break rules of good conduct just in order for them to survive. As such I experience it as rooted in issues in everyday reality, for me at least. There are turns and twists. One picture of their plight is shown, then suddenly upturned as their leader is shown to not have been too honest with them, a major breaking of the rules of good conduct. Then things go upside-down again as a science fiction element dominates the story. Oh so very day to day reality. I think of the phenomena as rooted in having been thrown into the sea and most of this story is set in Venice. * This story has Rollo Weeks, the little vampire in The Little Vampire (2000), in the title role. The bad guy of that story, Jim Carter alias Rookery the vampire slayer, as baddie who turns goodie, Victor, in this one. The biggest plus for me is Alice Connor, playing orphan Hornet. I first noticed her in The New Worst Witch, in which she has the title role. Younger relative of Millie, the original worst witch, and all of Millie's flaws are there and growing in Hettie. TTL is Alice in a different role, some typecasting in role type but a very different persona and this has a nice ending for her, too. Hornet gets her man. * This feature did encourage me to read the novel. I can like the feature despite the difficulties that I first experienced from the story telling style.

It took me about four hours to read the Thief Lord, and four hours for the book to become my all time favourite. And it wasn't a case of reading a book because a movie's been made. I discovered the movie after, and fell in love with it. The actors did a wonderful job, and were very believable. And this was Aaron Johnson's second time being an on screen orphan. He was Charlie Chaplin in Shanghai Knights. The movie didn't have many changes, but a change that I absolutely adored was the flirtation between Hornet and Prop. I suspected it in the book, and I'm thrilled they got it out in the open in the movie. All in all, it was one of the best movie's I've ever seen, and it remains my favourite.

Do we rate movies like we do commercials? Then a young pup nibbling on the leg of a teenage stunner should be rated 11!Anyway, this movie is not bad, but it's not very good either. It's average for its time, budget and genre. It is basically a children's story, with pretty good acting and casting, but with bad directing and scripting. Someone probably took a children's book and adapted it, then left the film to the actors.Conclusion: if you are looking for a nostalgic reminder of a childhood movie, then watch it. Else you will just get bored by an outdated and pretty pointless film. I am not against these kind of movies, but I've seen movies with children and for children that were way better and impressive.

This was a pretty good movie. I read the book as well, and it was much better. I personally expected Esther to be younger, but that's okay. Scipio and Prosper was each about to be 13, but in the movie Scipio is 15 and Prosper is 15. I liked the beginning scene when Prop and Bo are in the boat with the bike. One thing I liked was Hornet and Prosper at the end. They look so cute together. I wish there were more scenes with them together, and if you rent the DVD, there is a deleted scene with them talking about Prosper's mom. The cast was so cool. My two favorites are Rollo Weeks, who plays Scipio, and Alice Connor, who plays Hornet. All in all, this movie was pretty great.