The Indian in the Cupboard

Top flight entertainment for "tween" aged children
"The Indian in the Cupboard" is an excellent movie for tween-aged children (i.e., children between their pre-school and teen years). In this movie a boy discovers that he can bring small action figures to life by using a small, old, wooden cupboard. The first figure he brings to life is a Native American. As the story progresses, the boy learns important lessons about life from his new friend, "Little Bear."

The story is exciting without being frightening, educational without being stuffy, and fun without being extreme. "The Indian in the Cupboard" presents an excellent entertainment offering for pre-teens who often see too much programming centered on overstimulation of sight, sound, and action (e.g., Pokemon...).

I also like the fact that the boy in the story doesn't look like he stepped right out of an advertising agency, or off of the cover of a magazine. He is a regular guy...his hair is a little messy, his teeth haven't gone through an...

My goodness, what an insult to the book!!
We just got done reading this book in our homeschool so naturally I rented this movie hoping it would bring the words to life. This movie is a mere shadow of the book. Omri's family is nice and even the boy who plays him is okay. The Native American who played the "Indian" (Litefoot) did a wonderful job but the script was so pathetic. The boy who played Patrick was repugnant and not much of a real friend. One of the major things that just absolutely kills this movie for me is the excessive amount of cussing (at one point Omri even says a cuss word to his mom, and she responds with a proud, wide-mouthed grin). Not only that, but in one scene the boys even have the cowboy and Indian watching a raunchy music video, and plenty is shown to make it offensive. These were fatal mistakes in my opinion, I am sure I am not the only one who was turned off by these things. It would have been so awesome to see what a really good director could have done with this movie.

Toy Story Comes To Life....
This video made it to our family library long ago. Entertaining, enjoyable for adults and children, with relatively little violence (there are some battle scenes), it opens up avenues for dinner time conversation about reality, fantasy, Native Americans, friendship and bullies. In addition, watching this movie led us to the book series, which my then 6 year old listened to intently.

What we liked - fantasy mixed with reality, much like Small Soldiers or E.T. (though not nearly as good as E.T.) With the help of a magical key and cabinet, our hero, Omri, brings a figurine, Little Bear, to life (in miniature form). He watches Little Bear build a home and finds a wife for him. Omri's best friend, Patrick, doesn't quite understand the difference between play and real lives, and brings Boone, a cowboy and his horse to life, setting off a small battle between the two people.

Boone brings a touch of comic relief to the film, which deals with some serious issues. Death...

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