film | Over troubled water

BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA faithfully adapts Katherine Paterson's beloved 1977 young-adult book, but in this case, faithfully may not mean that the film sticks to its source material. No, it's more of a bewildered allusion to Walden Media, the production company led by conservative moneybags Philip Anschutz that aspires to swaddle its kiddie-oriented properties — including Terabithia and the Chronicles of Narnia film series that recently launched — in evangelical values and themes. Hey, if that's your bag, I at least hope it matches your shoes, but watching Bridge to Terabithia, I kept wondering why a guy who's funded research institutes that support only intelligent-design studies and ballot initiatives to legalize discrimination against gays and lesbians would back a movie that invites its audience to, as one character succinctly puts it, "Close your eyes and keep your mind wide open"?

Oh well. My personal issues with the producers' wonky politicking aside, Terabithia is a film best described as nice: well-intentioned, intermittently engaging and hardly a chore to endure, and as the end credits roll, you sit there thinking, "Gosh, I wish I liked that movie more than I actually did." I blame the fantasy genre's oversaturation — you've got your Narnias, your Harry Potters, your Lord of the Ringses. In Terabithia, when two fifth-grade classmates (RV's Josh Hutcherson and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's Annasophia Robb) dodge mean bullies and stern parents by escaping into a make-believe world of trolls, sorcerers and other sundry critters, you don't really get the feeling that anything especially magical is happening; it's just a couple kids surrounding themselves with special-effects imagery they've cobbled together from sugar-buzzed marathon viewings of Narnia, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings on DVD. Also, that both Hutcherson and Robb look too old to be sparring with pretend monsters from a tree-fort in the woods — he was 14 at the time of filming, she was 13 — doesn't help to sell the copious flights of fantasy. On the page, their characters are 10, an age that seems more in line with their horsing around.

The non-imaginary scenes go down easier. They employ the usual clichés found in your garden-variety coming-of-age family flick — the soft-rock musical montage (let's dance while we paint the living room, everybody!), the crushed-on inspirational teacher (Elf's Zooey Deschanel, deflecting a borderline-creepy role with innocuous oomph), the dour dad (The X-Files' Robert Patrick) whose love is unyieldingly tough, the little sister (cutie-pie Bailee Madison, a natural at 7) who boo-hoos after being denied entry to the big kids' club — but they're performed with heart and enthusiasm by a cast that shines through what eventually amounts to a CGI-enhanced After-School Special. Hutcherson especially reigns in the story's jarringly dire finale with soulful conviction, emerging as a young actor to watch — preferably in better movies. Next up for him: the queasily-titled Firehouse Dog, which I'm gonna go ahead and bet isn't one of them. C+