MOVIE REVIEW ~ BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA

Release Date: February 15th 2007.
Duration: 1hr 36mins.
Genre: Fantasy Drama.
Rated: PG.

Bridge to Terabithia is a movie I have watched at the very least ten times. I unfortunately never had the chance to read the book, so I am unable to compare how similar or different they are from one another (it is on my to read list), the last time I seen this film was a few months ago when I was looking for a film that gave me some sort of comfort, and I remember exactly why this film gives me that sense of comfort and happiness. I love the idea of having a place to escape to from reality, between being bullied and having that horrible feeling that you don’t belong due to not having many friends, a great escape is exactly what is needed when reality gets crappy. Which that is exactly what this film had, that realism of young children in school and what they go through emotionally and physically, and how they made themselves feel happier and more themselves.

The connection between Jess Aarons (Josh Hutcherson) and Leslie Burke (Anna Sophia Robb) I found were the perfect duo for this cute family film. At first Jess thought that Leslie was possibly a little crazy, she was seeing and hearing things that he just was not quite understanding. Eventually he got into the idea of the Fantasy world and they became best of friends, they met up nearly every day after school just to go to Terabithia. The one day Jess was unable to meet up with Leslie was the day he went on a trip with his teacher Ms. Edmunds (Zooey Deschanel). When Jess got home, he found out about a tragic incident that had happened to his best friend Leslie (This is as far as I will go with the depth of the movie as I don’t want to spoil the movie, in case anyone has interests in watching it).

I can say there is a particular part in this movie that I always end up crying my eyes out, and it never fails to get to me. I know just when it is about to happen, and the water works just automatically take control over me.

Although I do highly recommend this movie for an evening at home with the family, I do not recommend to little kids. Between the giants and some parts of the movie being a little on the dark side it can either scare them or they might not understand everything that is going on in the film. I would probably suggest 10-11+ for the age group.

Although the story itself was amazing, I kind of wish that things were a bit different for the characters, maybe it would’ve left an open opportunity for a second film. Would’ve loved to see what Leslie and Jess would’ve been like a bit older.

My ratings: *****

~*ATBW*~