In the United Kingdom, E. Nesbit’s 1902 children’s novel Five Children and It is a beloved literary classic, that's been perpetually in print since its release. Over the years, Five Children and It has been adapted into various different forms, including Jacqueline Wilson’s 2012 novel Four Children and It, a modernized version of the story of siblings who encounter a wish-granting creature called the Psammead. Nesbit’s book was made into a feature film in 2004, and the new movie Four Kids and It is a somewhat loose adaptation of Wilson’s reimagined story. Maybe for British audiences who grew up with this tale, there’s a certain nostalgic fondness for the Psammead, but for anyone else, he’s just a grotesque-looking monster who randomly speaks in the bored voice of Michael Caine.
The Psammead lives in the sands of a secluded beach in the English county of Cornwall, where David (Matthew Goode) and Alice (Paula Patton) bring their children on a surprise vacation. It’s a surprise, because the two adults have been secretly dating and have decided to reveal their relationship to their children, all of whom still have strong attachments to David’s and Alice’s previous spouses. That’s especially true for David’s nerdy, aspiring-writer daughter Ros (Teddie-Rose Malleson-Allen), who naively thinks that the vacation surprise will be that her parents have reunited. Alice’s snotty daughter Smash (Ashley Aufderheide) believes that she’s going to be whisked away at any moment to join her dad in his new life in the Seychelles, and she’s constantly accusing Alice of being a horrible mother.
Ros and Smash are both 13, and they are instantly resentful of the new arrangement, determined to hate each other before they even speak. Ros’ little brother Robbie (Billy Jenkins) and Smash’s little sister Maudie (Ellie-Mae Siame) are more easygoing, although none of them are pleased to be on this forced family bonding trip. They start to put aside their differences when they discover the Psammead, an ancient creature who looks like a cross between Gollum and Gremlins’ Gizmo, who is introduced tunneling under the sand around the children like one of the monsters from Tremors. He’s a cantankerous beast who only reluctantly tells the children about his ability to grant them one wish per day and he seems to be actively rooting for their downfall.
Oddly enough, Nesbit’s book exists in the movie’s world, so Ros already knows all about the Psammead and its powers, including that the wishes always expire at sundown. The kids mostly make dull, budget-friendly wishes that get them into mild trouble but lack the dire consequences that the Psammead warns them about. The creature itself is an awkward, uncanny special effect that doesn’t fit Caine’s voice acting, and the manifestations of the wishes are depicted with even cruder effects, especially in a sequence of the children flying that looks like something shot against a green screen at an amusement-park kiosk.
The children are all petulant, entitled whiners, and Smash in particular is so inconsiderate and irritating that even her eventual, obvious redemption can’t save her. Since this is a mainstream family movie, the filmmakers (screenwriters Simon Lewis and Mark Oswin and director Andy De Emmony) add a wacky villain to the story in the form of eccentric, wealthy collector Tristan Trent III (Russell Brand), whose family has been obsessed with capturing the Psammead for generations. Brand at least seems to be having a good time in addition to collecting his paycheck, but Trent’s story is entirely superfluous, with some feeble attempts at jokes for the parents in the audience. It clutters up the already overlong movie’s sluggish plot, distracting from the central emotional conflict of the kids learning to accept their new blended family.
Goode and Patton, both actors who deserve better than this material, are stuck with the thankless roles of the disapproving parents, whose main running joke is that they never actually get the chance to kiss. Most of the humor is broad and aimed at kids, so the Psammead farts when it grants wishes, there’s a joke about Angry Birds and when Ros wishes for laser-vision powers to defeat the villain, she aims them right at Trent’s butt. Brand makes flustered noises, and Goode and Patton stand around looking bemused.
The meager life lessons are barely imparted by the time the movie ends, and the story devotes much of the last act teasing a world-changing wish (and obvious learning opportunity) that never arises. Instead, the kids spend most of their time trying to rescue the Psammead from Trent, despite the creature bringing them nothing but inconvenience and grief. "There’s a sand monster in the tub," Maudie says when the parents ask about commotion in the house. "He’s mean but we love him." The kids’ dedication to this hideous beast is as inexplicable as its apparent enduring U.K. pop-culture appeal.
Starring Matthew Goode, Paula Patton, Russell Brand, Teddie-Rose Malleson-Allen, Ashley Aufderheide, Billy Jenkins, Ellie-Mae Siame and the voice of Michael Caine, Four Kids and It is available Tuesday on VOD and Blu-ray/DVD.