Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

OllieSuave-007 I caught this movie on TV when I was a teen during the Christmas season, and remembered being quite entertained with all the whimsical scenes and enchanted cast of characters. Drew Barrymore stars as 11-year-old Lisa Piper, who is too busy taking care of her siblings and mother. As a source of escape, she travels to Toyland in Wizard of Oz-like fashion during a Christmas blizzard and arrives just in time for a wedding. A young Keanu Reeves and Clue/Private Benjamin actress Eileen Brennan also stars. Nice visual effects and simple plot. Not the most exciting movie, though, but still an innocent, family-friendly film that is nice to watch over the holidays.Grade B-

utgard14 Another version of Babes in Toyland. This one is pure kiddie stuff with Drew Barrymore starring as a little girl from Cincinnati (believe me this is important) who accidentally falls into Toyland where she meets all the Mother Goose characters, who happen to look exactly like her friends and family back home. So, yeah, they rip off Wizard of Oz hard here. It's pretty fluffy with some truly terrible songs and a bizarre fascination with the city of Cincinnati. I thought maybe the movie was filmed there and they added all that stuff for a tax break or something but apparently no, it was filmed in Germany. The colorful costumes, props, and sets are all refreshingly old-school. In today's CGI era, it's nice to look back and admire the amount of work and craftsmanship that went into bringing imagination to life back before Skynet took over. The songs are the pits, especially the one about (you guessed it) Cincinnati. The acting is pretty weak across the board. Vets Richard Mulligan, Eileen Brennan, and Pat Morita 'play to the kids,' which is expected I suppose. Keanu Reeves is taking the whole thing so seriously it's embarrassing. Drew Barrymore is clearly having fun but her dramatic scenes are cringeworthy. Like I said, it's aimed at little kids. There's little of interest for adults beyond some nostalgia or maybe to chuckle at all the Cincinnati business. The version I saw was 94 minutes and it was a bit of a chore to get through at that runtime. The original TV airing was much longer. I can't imagine that extra time making this anything but worse.

DesertHedgehog I'm reviewing this movie based on its own merits. I'm not comparing it to any older productions.The sets are hideous. Imagine the most boring and spartan buildings you can picture painted various shades of pink and purple, and you've got Toyland. Even the giant shoe the old woman used to live in manages to be boring.The characters (most of whom are flat and dull) seem to spend most of their time running around and getting nothing of value done. For example, Jack gets thrown into jail, gets broken out of jail, and promptly gets himself trapped by the villain. Ample screen time is spent showing the characters running around town in kiddie cars instead of advancing the plot.The movie hands out promises like it's Christmas and breaks every one of them. For example, George Porgie says that Barnaby occasionally rolls his bowling-ball-shaped house into town. You'd expect that to be foreshadowing for the film's climax, right? Nope, it never happens. Lisa attempts to play matchmaker between Barnaby and Mrs. Hubbard, something you'd expect to pay off SOMEHOW by the end of the film. It doesn't, unless you count a cheap joke to be a payoff. The Dark Forest is mentioned several times, leading you to think the characters might end up having to go into it, but in fact, they never leave town. The Toymaker hints that Barnaby could be redeemed... but in the end, he just gets banished to the forest.A particularly ridiculous aspect was how Lisa, who frequently complains that she's "not a child," must learn to use her imagination again and "believe." However, up until the end of the film there is no real indication that Lisa isn't imaginative; whenever she insists that she's no longer a child she is clearly doing so because she does not want to be perceived as incompetent or incapable based on the fact that she's 11. Bucking against ageism and refusing to use one's imagination are not the same thing, which this film unfortunately implies.As far as charming holiday specials go, this movie is not one of them.

av-35 I cannot believe I have never heard or seen this movie. I was getting married in 1986 and I guess this just passed me by! Tonight for the first time, I am watching this movie on TV with my nine year old. He loves it! I on the other hand am feigning interest while I'm amazed and entertained by the bad acting, tacky costumes cheap wooden toys and really bad sets!My 9 year old LOVES the whole thing. The weird little beat up cars and leftover stuff they must of used from a closed amusement park. This looks like a episode of Puff N Stuff on a lower budget. I can certainly see how all the people who truly love this movie must of loved it when it first came out. Lets just say, if I didn't have a 9 year old, I would of clicked right by. :)