The Magic Faraway Tree

know never happens uh but we're gonna kick things off by going to a world of magic and that is the magic far away tree this one is based on the book series by enid blighton um a kind of a british book series uh a british film this movie actually opened in the winter-spring in the UK, because I have a critic friend who was over there that asked me if I had seen it.

I'm like, never even heard of it.

And that was back in February.

Finally getting a release here.

It has a pretty loaded cast.

You can see Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy in there, Rebecca Ferguson.

There are a whole bunch.

It is kind of like a children's movie.

I guess at times I felt like it's probably a book series kind of similar to like the Narnia book series where you have a grounded real world story, although not set in World War II and not meant to be an allegory for the Bible.

But a couple of beleaguered parents who were trying to get things going, trying to follow their dream to grow tomatoes and bottle their own tomato sauce in the English countryside, you know, like you do.

And the kids find a magic portal to a magic land that has fairies and different elements and different things.

And there's kind of like an evil schoolmarm looking queen in one of them.

And that's what Rebecca Ferguson plays.

So a lot of famous adult actors that might be a hook for audiences that are like mine and Eric's age.

but they aren't the primary focus of the movie.

I had a lot of fun with this.

I'm giving this one a mild thumbs up.

I wouldn't mind seeing more.

I think they set up where they could do more.

I know it's a series of books that has more.

I actually think I saw somewhere they've already greenlit The Magic Faraway Tree 2 in England.

So who knows how long we'll get there.

I'll be curious to see how domestic audiences react to this.

On the one hand, we haven't gotten a lot of family-friendly releases this month.

I think still the biggest kids movie that is out there is Toy Story 5, which is way back from June.