Director Gabor Csupo of Rugrats "fame" steers clear of cutesy tween stereotypes, but it's Jess's relationship with his father, played by Robert Patrick, that elevates Terabithia from a good kids movie to a classic contender.
The news is good for Bridge to Terabithia fans. The beloved children's book has not just survived but thrived in its adaptation to the screen.
A wonderfully heart-wrenching love story for tweens, teens, and even adults who fondly remember when a friendship could be ignited by a gesture as simple as offering a stick of Juicy Fruit.
This is easily the best family feature of the early year.
This is Csupo's feature directorial debut, but as creator, producer, and writer of Rugrats and The Wild Thornberrys, among several other series, he's had a long career in animation, and he handles the CGI setpieces masterfully.
Consistently smart and delicate as a spider web, Bridge to Terabithia is the kind of children’s movie rarely seen nowadays. And at a time when many public schools are being forced to cut music and art from the curriculum, the story’s insistence on the healing power of a nurtured imagination is both welcome and essential.
Csupo needed two very gifted leads to do this beloved story justice, and found them in AnnaSophia Robb and Josh Hutcherson.
Has buckets of gentle sincerity. Since there aren't any dumb jokes or hip visuals, it's easy to get caught up in the simple messages: Be good to your sister, don't be a bully, use your imagination in a pinch.
Elaborately mounted, expensively produced and filmed with style and empathy, it's an adaptation of Paterson's Newbery Medal-winning book that manages to expand the original vision, yet preserve much of its intense emotion.
There's a persistent innocence to this movie that will work wonders on all but the most churlish.
It's like an After-School Special version of Pan's Labyrinth, and I actually mean that as a compliment.
Bridge to Terabithia the movie, like the book, is buckets-of-tears sad. Director Csupo and company manage to get that - the simple power of a story about kindred souls, about loss, about the limitless possibilities of a lively mind - just right.
A must-see for the entire family!