The Thief Lord Review
Monday, February 8th, 2010 |
The Thief Lord Review.
Movie Title: The Thief Lord The Thief Lord is available for streaming or downloading. |
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Most films released with such little promotion are horrible, but “The Thief Lord” is actually quite good. One of its finest selling points is that it contains none of the gross adult humor that is so popular in modern children’s movies. “The Thief Lord” is based on the German children’s book with the same name by Cornelia Funke. Although the same complaint about adaptations applies: The movie is almost never as good as the book, this should not keep anyone from enjoying the film.
There are a few minor changes to the story mostly to make it better suited to the screen, but the movie follows the book fairly closely, and the plot moves a lot quicker than its literary counterpart. Orphans Prosper and his younger brother Bo run away to Venice, the city from their mother’s fairy tales, because their aunt wants to separate them. Upon arriving in Venice, the boys come under the protection of an older boy known as the Thief Lord who shelters a group of homeless street kids. However, their aunt isn’t about to give up that easily, and a detective is soon on hot Prosper’s and Bo’s trail. When the Thief Lord agrees to perform a special theft for a mysterious count, the children, the detective, a photographer, and a crooked antiques dealer are all drawn into something much larger than any of them could have guessed.
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The children are well cast. The boys playing Prosper and Bo are the cutest kids since the boys picked to play Ron Weasley in the first Harry Potter movie and Colin Creevey in the second, and Riccio looks like a young Johnny Rotten right down to the teeth. The film itself is well shot. It is obvious that this was a low budget film when it comes to the special effects, but things don’t always have to look like they cost millions of dollars. The makeup and effects could have been better for Scipio’s transformation though. That’s the only real disappointment.
Overall, this movie is better than much of what is out there.
Up until the day that I saw “The Thief Lord” on the DVD shelf, I was entirely unfamiliar with it and the book it’s based on. It was a wonderful surprise. It follows the lives of two young boys named Prosper and Boniface who trek off to Venice in order to remain together after losing their mother. She always told them how magical Venice was, and their expectations were high. Instead, they are left to fend for themselves on the street until they meet the Thief Lord. He’s sort of a cross between Robin Hood and Peter Pan, though his intentions aren’t to stay young forever.
The Thief Lord houses a small band of orphans in an old theater, and Prosper and Bo join them. They gain the trust of the group when Prosper haggles with a local antiques dealer and garners a large sum of money for the group. As the story rolls along, Bo and Prosper’s relatives hire a private eye to seek them out. They also run into a nice photographer who ends up helping them quite a bit during their adventures. Eventually, the duo uncover some wild information about the Thief Lord, hunt for a magical wing, and help there fellow orphans along the way. It’s all done in a wonderful and child-like fashion. The magic of Venice is slowly revealed and results in quite a grand climax. The antiques dealer adds a nice bit of comic relief, especially near the end of the film.
In closing, give “The Thief Lord” a chance. It doesn’t have the same budget as many other modern “family friendly” films, but it is a much better film overall. It’s getting a lot of comparison to the “Harry Potter” flicks, but I believe that it stands apart from that film and really doesn’t have much in common with it other than the English accents. I highly recommend it, especially if you have children, but I even recommend it to adults who simply enjoy magical tales.