The Secret Kingdom

I watched this with my 7 and 9 year old kids, I have to say WOW!. We absolutely loved it!

The visuals are amazing and the story hits out of the blue. I initially felt it started a little slowly as the kids just wanted to see the creatures but the story establishes itself with some things that really hit home later. Once the characters fall into the underground world it really gets going and there really is so much to look at. The visuals and the story are a lot bigger than what is shown in the trailers I saw. And Its Australian film! This is up there with anything you will see. It's a great adventure with a sweet story that prompted some thoughtful family conversation afterwards. Highly recommended.

The comedy team "The Chaser" once said that we should preface all reviews of Australian films with "For an Australian Movie". Sadly, even with that preface, this movie still isn't good. Primarily, I really struggled with the acting which sounded like a crew from a local theatre group doing their first play. Special mention to the first scene in the curio shop, where the owner manages around 5 different accents in one line of dialogue! Surprisingly, the two child characters were actually some of the better actors. To be fair to the actors however, the script did them no favours with some painfully cheesy dialogue and scenes that were a collection of fantasy "the chosen one" tropes.

However it wasnt all awful, the CGI was solid and it had some sparks of fun especially in the second act of the movie early in the underground. It feels like a movie with significant potential that is never quite reached.

If you are at a loose end for an OK family movie and don't have many alternatives, then give the Secret Kingdom a try.. My kids (7 and 11) definitely enjoyed it more than the adults did.

I have this as a 6/10, but that is out of major respect to the studio and their ambition with this movie. For an Australian film, this is shockingly ambitious and isn't afraid to do big action scenes. Now, some of the CGI is iffy, but it's perfectly fine, given this isn't a major studio release (I'm looking at you Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumainia).

The kids acting is surprisingly solid; it's always hard to find good child actors, and to find some outside the U. S. is outstanding. That's where many of these family adventure movies fall, and it's great that they found good talent. Also, they will probably be great for kids to see themselves in the characters, so that's a plus.

The main faults of the movie are the generic story and (as I mentioned before) its iffy CGI. The story is serviceable, but it's been done many times before; it's okay to go down the same path, but without enough turns, it ultimately just feels samey and that's a problem both big and small movies can have. The CGI, at some points, shocked me with how good it was, and I want to give my full praise to Hive Studios Australia; but at other points, I felt like I was ready to pick up the XBOX 360 controller.

The reason why I'm saying this is because they are on a good path and just need to keep pushing a little further to create great CGI through and through.

I want to keep this review short, but this movie is an absolute trip that, although it doesn't always land on its feet, makes up for in adventurous spirit. If you're a parent looking for a movie for a family movie night I'd highly recommend this one.

This is a kid's film. The CGI and special effects are good. The story has a fine moral-- about overcoming trauma and fear. It's not too full of itself, it's not silly, and the characters are enjoyable. I especially like the actress who played the sister; she did a fine job. The brother's acting seemed a little off, but he was playing the part of a child who was traumatized. Difficult part to play.

Adults should not watch a children's film and then rate it as if it's supposed to be for adults. This is for children. It's designed to catch and hold the attention of children, and hopefully teach them something in the process. This does so. To rate it 1 star or say it's the worst film ever is ridiculous and fueled more by ego and attitude than balanced reviewing. For the purpose it is intended, the film does well enough.

I don't know why these low ratings and reviews, it's a good movie for kids and adults Is the reason for these low ratings that the movie did not contain the agenda of modernity and that it was kids movie that was innocent of everything they wanted to push us for?

The movie is not without flaws, but it was never a bad movie I loved it and recommend watching it Much better than many of the children's films produced by big production companies, which are no longer innocent films Very good film for the family to enjoy, Very good film for the family to enjoy, Very good film for the family to enjoy,