The film revolves around her parents' funerals, as Maria Merewether finds a book her father left. Maria seems to discover recently that she is a princess in the Monacre Valley, where Maria is forced to move and live with her eccentric uncle. In this place called the Monakry Valley, she soon found herself responsible for various tasks.
It's a slow-moving affair with wooden acting, duff special effects and some woefully unfunny comic moments from Tim Curry as an undersized chef. All in all, the thing's severely lacking in magic.
This whimsical children's tale is uninspired yet doesn't drop far enough below mediocrity to justify a place in the lineup of "so-bad-they're-good" movies.
Richards starred in 2007's The Golden Compass and, compared with big-budget fantasies of that kind, this smaller effort can't help looking mimsy, despite its good intentions.
