Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

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For a film about a magical toy store and its 243-year-old owner, "Mr. Magorium´s Wonder Emporium" seems curiously devoid of magic . . . and a little old. Though sparks and pixie dust glisten all over the place, there´s a surprising lack of charm and energy that makes this film only marginally entertaining.

First-time feature director Zach Helm also wrote the original screenplay, and without knowing anything about him I think I could pretty much guess the things that inspired him. Helm and other Gen Exers grew up watching "Sesame Street" and reading "Stuart Little," and there´s a little of each in this film. Dustin Hoffman plays Edward Magorium, an affable old codger who claims he once beat Abraham Lincoln at hopscotch. Magic is matter-of-fact to this old-timer with the tousled Albert Einstein hair, because he´s owned the Wonder Emporium for 113 years. But as viewers listen to him talk about leaving the store, those of Helm´s generation will flash back to storekeeper Mr. Hooper dying on "Sesame Street"--the first show that felt it was good for children to learn how to directly face death and loss. There´s a sad undertone here as well, after Mr. Magorium declares to his only employee that he´s getting on in years and leaving the store to her.

"Are you dying?" asks Molly Mahoney (Natalie Portman), who´s been with Mr. Magorium since she was a little girl. "Light bulbs die, my dear. I am departing." Yeah, whatever. It still feels like an impending death, and with the tiny little store flanked by tall skyscrapers on both sides like the Stuart Little house, you get the sense that this tiny outpost of magic and whimsy may be one of the last oases like it in the contemporary world, and therefore a metaphor. Like "Elf" or "Miracle on 34th Street" or even "Peter Pan" before them, this film is all about belief and the power that it has to sustain (or recreate) magic. Without belief, the magic dies. But alas, without a more complicated plot, so does this movie.

There´s a little "Willy Wonka" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" here, but without the dark aspect that makes the chocolate bittersweet. There´s no real antagonist in "Mr. Magorium´s Wonder Emporium" except for an accountant named Henry (Jason Bateman), who´s been asked by we never know whom to check into Mr. Magorium´s books. And even then, he´s not all that menacing and, as it turns out, perfectly willing become partners of sorts with Molly, who had been thinking of quitting so that she could more seriously pursue a career as a pianist/composer. Together, they stumble on what makes the store tick, and therefore, what will make the magic continue.

Baby Boomer Hoffman brings his own generation´s shared cultural experience to the table, giving us his version of Ed Wynn´s toymaker from the 1961 Disney film, "Babes in Toyland." Everything about Hoffman´s performance evokes Wynn, right down to his shuffling and the way he holds his mouth, trying to phrase things with the slight but distinct little juicy slurring of words that was so much a part of Wynn´s beloved and eccentric characters. That´s not bad, mind you, but there´s nothing beyond homage here. It´s all a pretty straightforward plot: Mr. M. is dying (okay, "departing,"), he believes Molly has what it takes to see the magic and keep the store going, the store throws a tantrum because it wants Mr. M. to leave about as much as any of us (because once he does, what´s left of this film?), and Molly and Henry work together to try to figure out how to get the store to become magical again.

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