Holes

Apparently, this film is an endorsement of author Louis Sachar, who writes children's books and is widely beloved for the eponymous book. It's cute and somewhat intriguing and definitely glossily produced, there's no doubt about that, but the jokes aren't sophisticated enough for an adult audience and the plot seemed too twisty for children. A boy is wrongly sent to a desert detention camp where he ends up digging 5x5 ft holes for some unknown reason. There are lethal lizards and tasty onions in the mix, as well as an outlaw who kisses her victims before shooting them to death. A little strange, yeah. The supposedly brutal desert digging sequences didn't seem that brutal to me. The famous star is Sigourney Weaver as the detention camp manageress, which it seems she took on to make her kids happy. Henry Winkler has a tasty little role as the boy's dad, and the camp kids are all pert and funny. Yet for me, the material was just too stale to make it enjoyable.

year: 2003
length: 117 min.
rating: 2.5
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311289/combined