"Strange Magic" is a fun, entertaining musical. If you watch the film without expecting "Hamilton" out of it, you would be well pleased.

All too often, fun, children's movies fall victim to stinging reviews from jaded movie critics who expect "Taxi Driver" from children's fairy tales. The initial negative critical reception of "Strange Magic" is a perfect example of how such mismatched critical expectation can wreak havoc on a perfectly entertaining movie.

With a colorful, over-the-top cast of characters with ticklish absurdity, and seamlessly integrated pop-rock karaoke performances, "Strange Magic" is an entertaining oddball sketch of the early millennial spirit wrapped into "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The film is a crowd pleasing cult classic in the spirit of "Willow."

Didn't expect much, seeing as the trailer did look absolutely awful, but when babysitting a family friend's four children (aged 15, 13, 11 and 9) while their parents went away they opted to watch the recently released on DVD Strange Magic. The verdict from all of us was while it was not as bad as the trailer looked or quite the abomination that critics made out, it was not a good film and had a lot of faults.

Strange Magic did have some redeeming merits. Apart from very ugly character designs, the animation is very good, with bold, vivid colours and beautifully realised and sometimes imaginative backgrounds. Kelly Clarkson's song and the song sung by Roland at the ball are the only songs that come off well, at least they didn't sound butchered and the singing was quite decent for both, and Alan Cumming and Evan Rachel Wood are the ones that come off best in the voice cast, both give their all are very good in this film and their chemistry is actually enjoyable to watch.

Unfortunately, while the voice cast are incredibly talented and give their all (most of them don't come off too badly),their talents are not very well used in this film with most of them saddled with very limp and not particularly funny dialogue that is likely to go over children's heads, very forced and stale jokes (apart from Griselda's wanting a wedding but instead getting a funeral line) and dull and annoying characters that are difficult to connect with. Kristen Chenoweth did deserve more to do, seeing how incredibly her voice is she should have had more than two songs, both of which were dully arranged and not very memorable. Alfred Molina is completely wasted. Pacing is erratic, some of it is too frenetic and others feel dull and stretched.

Coming off worst though are the songs and the story. The songs, a lot of them pre-existing, themselves are actually good to great. The problems are the ghastly arrangements, that change some of them beyond recognition and strip them of their initial charm (instead making them little more than constant chaotic noise, the slower songs are so self-indulgently show they could induce boredom),and their placement, most of them misplaced, coming out of nowhere and grind the film to a screeching halt, often feeling like too much music (almost like a music video) and not enough story or characterisation.

The story is far too muddled as a result of trying to do too much, Marianne's quest is at odds with everything else and lacks emotional impact or heart, the themes and characterisation are far too disconnected, a lot of half-baked ideas with abrupt transitions and the busier, noisier parts feel too frenetic for their good. It also feels far too thin, some parts (especially the slower songs) being needlessly stretched and really does struggle to sustain the already overlong running time. Target audience is an issue too, unlike the untrue stereotype of animation being just for kids this strived to be a family film and doesn't succeed as one, kids may find it confusing and find the themes too adult for them (a strong emphasis on may, children's taste in films are often underestimated) and adults won't find much going for them either, for the exact reasons cited above.

Overall, not as terrible as has been made out and there are far worse animated films out there, but Strange Magic is lacking in too many areas to be a successful family film with a lot of strangeness but nowhere near enough magic. It is not going to be everybody's cup of tea, and if people like it that's not a problem with me, it just didn't do much for me and most critics. So enough with the critic bashing and understand that not everybody is going to like this film and have very good reasons for doing so, and this is true for many other panned films when defended. 3/10 Bethany Cox

On the border between the Fairy Kingdom and the Dark Forest, Primrose flowers grow that are used to make love potions. The Bog King orders the flowers be cut and love be ended. Fairy princess Marianne is engaged to the vain Roland and she catches him kissing another fairy. She vows never to fall in love again. Her sister Dawn is a social butterfly who has many possibilities for the ball. Roland tricks Dawn's elf friend Sunny who is secretly in love with Dawn to go into the Dark Forest and get Sugar Plum Fairy who has been captured by the Bog King to make him a love potion.

There is a reasonable story buried here somewhere. Too many of the characters are annoyingly silly. I like Marianne but that's all. The most annoying thing is the karaoke. It's like 'Rock of Ages' except so much worst. RoA knows its campiness at some level. The saddest part of this is Lucas probably spent a fortune getting all the rights. The animation is top-rate. The jokes are bad. George Lucas really needs other people to write his stories because he's lost his strange magic.