By Buzz Byrne

The school year starts as dismally as it could for fifth-grader Jess Aarons (Josh Hutcherson); the bullies are lurking everywhere, the teachers are meaner and he has to wear his sister’s pink hand-me-down shoes. Then, enter new girl and neighbor Leslie Burke (AnnaSophia Robb). She dresses funky and her parents (authors, both of them) don’t own a TV — she’s got it rough too. The kids are drawn together; they build a tree house deep in the woods behind their parents’ properties and create an imaginary world called Terabithia.
 
It takes the movie a little over half an hour to get to this point, and with a running time of 96 minutes, it is apparent that the real world —  not the imaginary one — is the focus of this movie. OK, so it’s a coming-of-age story now, not a fantasy tale. But, then a half hour later, we’re hit in the face with an emotional two-by-four when a child dies. The last third of the movie deals with that.

Usually, when a movie is falsely sold as one genre when it’s actually another, the end result is a bad movie. If you can get beyond the emotional and marketing manipulation, that’s what this movie is: bad.
 
The central problem is with the character of Leslie. Rather than develop her psychological world with its own set of burdens and challenges, she functions simply as a prop for Jess. There is a suggestion that her parents are somewhat absent in their duties, but rather than explore this head-on, it is implied in dialogue and then undercut by the scenes she does have with Mom and Dad. They listen to rock music together, dance in well-lit rooms, have fun and eat popcorn. Leslie is the creative force behind imagining Terabithia, however, it doesn’t come from any place of truth or her own need to escape into fantasy. It comes to deliver Jess from his miserable world. That isn’t a celebration of childhood creativity — it’s clunky plot movement.
 
The problem with the filmmaking is the casting. Hutcherson and Robb are certainly likable, but they are simply not fifth-graders. It is jarring at times to see these older kids play pretend. It doesn’t fit; rather, it gives the unfortunate impression that there are mental issues spurring the world of make-believe rather than the youthful innocence it is supposed to be. And, the director, Gabor Csupo, could have ratcheted down the score a peg or two. The music is supposed to support the visuals, not act as an emotional seeing eye dog. It’s insulting — not just to adults, but to kids as well. Let the actors do their jobs and you won’t have to have the music screaming, “NOW FEEL SAD! OKAY, STOP! NOW FEEL HOPEFUL! I SAID, FEEL HOPEFUL!!”  And, speaking of manipulative, the death is borne not from careful plot structure, but simply to jackhammer emotional reaction from the other remaining characters.
 
If you want THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, skip this and rent that one again.