The Goonies meets Godzilla in this brilliantly fun, imaginative and emotionally smart adventure for older kids. It’s about a 10-year-old girl named Amber (Bianca Belle) whose drawings of monsters magically come to life and wreak all kinds of havoc. Since they are the product of a 10-year-old brain, and drawn with felt-tip pens, the monsters are mostly a cute bunch of fuzzballs with googly eyes, burping up glitter. Though be warned, one or two near the end could spook even adult audiences.
Things start to go wrong for Amber after she is caught drawing a picture of herself stabbing a classmate – loudmouth, obnoxious Bowman (Kalon Cox). Amber lives with her big brother Jack (Kue Lawrence) and their lovely dad (Tony Hale); her mum has recently died, and there’s a funny scene around the dinner table as her brother Jack looks up on his phone if they are orphans, resulting in Amber coining the phrase “morphan” (as in maternal orphan).
Close to their house, the kids discover a bright blue lake that can miraculously fix anything. When Amber drops her notebook in the lake, the monsters on the pages come to life. The lake’s power is never properly defined in the story, but the action is good fun, and there is a valuable message about difficult emotions. Amber’s pictures are graphic but they express how she is feeling, while her brother and dad are bottling up grief. Another lesson, possibly learned from 80s kids’ movies, is that adults generally, parents in particular, are well-meaning but essentially ineffectual.
This is a family film with an IQ higher than the average – though before you book your half-term tickets, ask yourself if your little one is ready to watch a kid take a DIY flamethrower to the face of a scary monster.
