Emily and the Magical Journey Parent Guide

Emily (Tipper Seifert-Cleveland) and her mom (Jenny Lampa) are both grieving after the death of Emily’s father. One night, Emily stumbles upon her father’s illustrations of an enchanted place called Faunutland, to which Emily is magically transported. Emily must use her imagination and bravery to help the citizens of Faunutland defeat an evil witch who spreads fear across the land.

If that plot summary made no sense to you, worry not. I’ve actually seen this movie and I have no idea what happens in it. The writing is completely nonsensical. Nothing is set up or explained. Scenes just kind of happen randomly with no motivation or logic. The lack of structure or even a comprehensible plot also muddies the intended message. I think, and this is mostly a guess, that the filmmakers were trying to say something about imagination and overcoming fear, but it barely comes across. I would argue that Emily does not learn or grow at all from the beginning to the end of the film, aside from the fact that she learns to sink a layup in basketball. She doesn’t actually deal with grief or fear in any constructive ways, she just ignores them until they go away and somehow that saves the day.

Setting the dreadful writing aside for a moment, the production values are just bad. The acting is awful across the board and the sets are lackluster. I’m pretty sure most of this movie was shot in someone’s back yard. One positive is that the production chose to go mostly with puppets instead of CGI for the creatures, and some of them are really well done. Unfortunately, that makes the few moments with CGI look even worse in comparison.

For a movie with “Magical” in the title, there’s a distinct lack of magic. I appreciate a family friendly fantasy tale, but the lack of any content concerns does not make this one worth watching.