Xstal

Now here's a tale that's overwhelmingly nice, like puppy dogs tales and sugar and spice, with innocence threaded from the top to the bottom, and generally speaking, there's nothing that's rotten; as a robot behaves like the good Dr Dolittle, like Robinson Crusoe it gets into a fine pickle, but help is at hand from a fox and a possum, with a gosling called Brightbill relationships blossom; it's a joy to behold with great animation, has a heart full of soul and a moral foundation, perhaps a little too trite if you want to complain, but just like WALL·E, the message is plain.

It's a lovely tale that needs a big screen to be enjoyed from.

There's a lass, I'd have to say, you can't ignore her - working in a place with fascinating fauna, makes a living, just gets by, you can take her for a ride, if you're lucky you may get, to see her flora. An opportunist, she has an arsenal to deploy, knows a good thing when she meets a Russian boy, they enjoy some fun and frolics, they exchange lots of hydraulics, then word gets back to those, who are killjoys. So a dogleg's then deployed, plot rearranges, and the humour ratchets up as well as rages, guardians begin to prise, pulling apart the binds and ties, in a film that truly stuns, often amazes.

Great performances all round, wonderful cinematography, and a script full of magic.

Alas two hours or just shy is not enough, to encapsulate the essence of King's book, with David Soul you got the whole, James Mason dry and rather droll, a vamp that frightened you to death, if you could look. For me, it was the scariest of all, behind me when it's dark and shadows tall, but with the new a trick is missed, the characters do not persist, in fact this sinks like a lead ball, does not enthral. So my advice is go and find the two part version, where the tension's slowly built and intrigue well spun, where the scratching on the pane, will make you want to avoid Maine, and your instinct's not to stay, but yell and run.

A shadow of what was and what could have been.