Here is a movie that starts off with a locked box and a young man who is searching for the key, and within the box is the “meaning of life”. Jeremy Fink’s late father left it for him so it is extremely important to Jeremy that he finds a way to open it. So the movie grabs the audience’s curiosity from the beginning. Jeremy’s best friend Lizzie, who happens to be a girl, helps him along the way. The movie opens with Jeremy being only two weeks away from turning 13 which is, as Jeremy points out, a “big deal” when you’re 12.”
The opening sequence includes some vivid colors of various clocks, great animation of an airplane, a space ship, a windmill and lots of flowers, in addition to featuring a peppy song. The mystery of the locked box deepens as Jeremy and Lizzie meet Mr. Oswald, a happy and mysterious man, who gives them various “assignments” which don’t always make sense to them. Eventually, Jeremy receives the key and is able to finally open the box. But what does he find inside?
Jeremy is a neat character who wants to build a time machine and go back in time to see his father who passed away and left him the box. His friend Lizzie’s mother left Lizzie and her father some time previous so Jeremy and Lizzie share a common bond. The film contains themes of loyalty, friendship and emphasizes the need to truly appreciate the great moments of one’s life, and to even recognize the significance of the difficult times. Despite these nice themes, the film includes a brief seance and the two main characters visiting a palm reader, and we therefore are unable to award our Dove Seal to the movie due to the content rating hitting a level three in the “other” category. It’s too bad because without those two scenes, the film would have received our Dove “Family-Approved” Seal.
