$ave Your Money!

Save your money! Bridge to Terabithia is a waste!

It’s about Jesse Aaron (Josh Hutcherson), a middle school student from a poor family. On his first day back to school after summer break, he’s forced to wear his older sister’s pink, hand-me-down sneakers because his parents don’t have the money to buy him new ones. At school he’s abused by bullies, bored by his teachers, and treated like an outcast by the other kids. At home his interaction with his dad consists mainly of being yelled at to do his homework or yelled at to do chores. His only escape are his drawings, which he keeps in an oversized sketchbook that goes with him everywhere

Jesse’s place in this world isn’t going to change, but the way he looks at it does when he meets Leslie (AnnaSophia Robb). She represents a compleely new way of thinking when she moves in next door. Like Jesse she’s an outsider, but for completely different reasons. Jesse keeps his head down and minds his own business. Leslie is simply herself, and if she’s rejected by the kids around her it’s simply because she doesn’t care what any of them think.

Eventually the two loners are drawn together. Bridge to Terabithia simply follows them around as Leslie helps Jesse unlock his imagination. She’s a budding writer with a talent for fiction and he’s an artist grappling with his father’s insistence that he get his head out of the clouds. Leslie not only helps him keep his head in the clouds, she shoves him through them and up into the stratisphere. Together they do all the things that friends with imaginations do, founding their own little world of make believe out in the forest on Jesse’s farm

The problem with Bridge is the “make-believe”. They’re showing us the world through the eyes of these kids. So when they start imagining that they’re in their own fantasy world of Terabithia, we see what they’re imagining in their heads as if it’s real! That means a little bit of CGI. Not a lot, but enough to be annoying. Fantasy beasts just don’t fit a film that’s otherwise so wonderfully rooted in reality. Those few sequences when they forced upon us are pretty boring. So watching Jesse fight a giant squirrel isn’t interesting, there’s no sense of danger or doubt about the outcome. It’s a snoozefest.

** In a nutshell, read the book. You will be MUCH better off.