Bridge to Terabithia/National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets

For everything “Bridge to Terabithia,” released in 2007, does to encourage children to use their imaginations and go for the arts, the movie’s producers give only a little bit of the imaginative creatures and magical kingdom made up by two children. Susan Walker said in her review, “It's as if someone cut the animation and special effects budget, forcing most of the action into the world the children would sooner escape, where parents can't pay the bills and bullies rule the playground.”

Walker continued, “An adaptation of a Newberry Medal-winning kids' novel, Bridge to Terabithia is more As the World Turns than The Wizard of Oz.” Director Gabor Csupo gets strong performances from his child actors, Josh Hutcherson, Anna Sophia Robb, and 7-year-old Bailee Madison. Walker noted, “But those cool, furred flying monsters and a kindly faced giant formed from a tree must have been working to their own union rules, for they appear on screen for only tantalizingly brief moments.”

Hutcherson plays Jesse Aarons, an 11-year-old who has so much to not like his home life. He’s a boy in the middle of four sisters (Madison, Devon Wood, Emma Fenton and Grace Brannigan). His father, played by Robert Patrick, favors the daughters and takes out all of his stress on Jesse. At school, Jesse is bullied as a poor farmer boy who has to wear a sister’s hand-me-down pink-and-white sneakers. Running and drawing make him feel better.

The good thing is he can beat everyone else in his class on the track team. That is, until Leslie Burke, played by Robb, arrives at the school. As the new girl and a kid who dresses in her own fashion, she is immediately casted out. For Jesse, Leslie is more humiliating, as she outruns him and every boy in the school track team.

Nevertheless, Jesse and Leslie become friends whose country homes are next door. They go off on the fields and into a dark wood of old and broken down trees. Swinging on a rope hanging over a lake, the two of them enter forbidden area where they find an old, broken down ancient pick-up truck and what’s left of a large tree house.

Walker said, “Leslie conjures up the kingdom of Terabithia with its Dark Master (an occasional moving black blur), warrior dragonflies, squirrels that become boar-like Squogres and turkey buzzards that turn into dive-bombing, winged monsters. There are prisoners kept here, says Leslie.” “You and I have been sent to free them,” Leslie tells Jesse, with his art skills, creating the land that only they know about.

She can be called a super-heroine, taking on Janice Avery (Lauren Clinton), the overweight eighth grade bully who gets money from girls trying to go into the bathroom, and putting down Gary Fulcher (Elliot Lawless) when he teases Leslie for not having a TV at home. Walker said, “With two closeted writers for parents, absorbed in their work, Leslie has her own reasons for finding a place of escape.”

A sad very real tragedy that Jesse blames himself brings an end to the magical kingdom, as Terabithia withdraws into insignificance. Only in the last few minutes when Jesse takes his little sister May Belle over the lake and into the woods, does this incredible kingdom with every great imaginary residents come flying into view. Zooey Deschanel plays the music teacher Jesse has a crush on.

Next comes the 2007 sequel, “National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets.” Kam Williams started his review by saying, “Like a poor man’s version of Indiana Jones, Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) is a globetrotting treasure hunter who careens back and forth across the screen in a high-octane race against time to find a priceless artifact before a diabolical villain with evil intentions.” In the first movie, the adventure was about decoding clues hidden by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence rumored to take him to a buried treasure.

Williams said, “Sticking with the American history motif, the action-packed sequel is mostly more of the same sort of fare, now having our intrepid hero searching for 18 pages reportedly ripped from the diary of John Wilkes Booth several days after the end of the Civil War. Here, red, white and blue-blooded Ben is motivated mostly by a desire to clear the smeared name of his presumably patriotic great-great-grandfather who has recently been implicated as the mastermind of the conspiracy behind the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.” However, the missing pages are also said to have encrypted messages which will take the decoder to the unlimited riches of Cibola, the legendary cave city of gold.

Ben is lucky to have such great help in his traveling adventure from his friend, Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), his ex-girlfriend, Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), and his parents (Jon Voight and Helen Mirren), especially since he has a worthy enemy in Booth’s great-grandson Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris). This villain will stop at nothing to find the supposed “Book of Secrets” first.

Williams ended his review by saying, “The manic pace of the picture is designed with the joy stick generation in mind, because it unfolds frenetically, more like a mind-numbing computer game than a plot-driven feature film offering a story of substance worth pausing to care about. Over-stimulating brain bubblegum guaranteed to take kids under ten straight to adrenaline heaven.” Definitely another good sequel that feels like you’re going on a field trip that is definitely worth checking out.

Check in tomorrow where we look at more excitement in “Disney Live-Action Month.”