Review of The Thief Lord (2006) by Jens S — 17 Feb 2012

This adventure film set in the beautiful city of Venice aims primarily at a young audience. That does not mean there is nothing for adults here, but they may have a harder time connecting to the story, what with very few believable grown-up characters in the story and a rather disjointed way of telling it.

The plot gets surprisingly complex for a kids adventure, but the dialog remains rather shallow and simplistic. The soundtrack often makes things sound more exciting and bombastic than they actually are.

The movie's biggest asset is the setting, which is primarily real Venice and oozes the atmosphere of the city (even if obviously filmed in winter). The characters do remain rather flat. Now, kids certainly don't mind all that, there is plenty of stuff happening and glimpses of magic between the adventure plot.

So the target audience should have fun with it, as an adult there have been more coherent films to watch with children than this.