Pity, because the actual movie itself is a lot of things the title is not. Director Bob Shaye’s (Book of Love) film, working from a story by James V. Hart (Hook) and Carol Skilken and a screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost) and Toby Emmerich (Frequency), is smart, intriguing and imaginative. The kids attending the promotional screening I was at ate this up, most of them sitting in wide-eyed anticipation as to what was going to happen next.

While I can’t admit to being equally enthralled, I do own up to the fact that this work has a certain early Spielberg-like charm that’s hardly off-putting. Its pintsized view of the world is actually quite refreshing, and much like another recent dramatic family-friendly success Bridge to Terabithia this one manages to talk to children, not down to them, and that’s an admirable cinematic quality no matter which way you choose to look at it.

That said, this one didn’t captivate or move me near as much as that Disney charmer of a month ago did. It is a bit too schmaltzy for me, the adults far too magnificent a set of idiots for anyone outside of a total Neanderthal to even remotely take them seriously. Thankfully the children at the center of it all are, not only adorable, but pretty darn decent little actors, too, while Shaye, directing for the first time in 17 years, shows a subtle maturity he didn’t back in 1990.

Noah (Chris O'Neil) and Emma Wilder (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn) are typically normal Seattle kids spending their Easter vacation at their Whidbey Island home with their mom Jo (Joely Richardson) while their dad David (Timothy Hutton) works the weekend away back in the big city. The two find a strange box while playing on the beach. Captivated, they wrap it up in a blanket and sneak it into the house.

Inside they discover many things, not the least of which is a stuffed bunny rabbit Emma takes to calling Mimzy. She also claims the toy is speaking to her, telling her things which allow the child to develop skills unlike any the adults around her have ever seen before. Not to be outdone, Noah starts drawing pictures of mandalas mimicking the great Buddhist drawings of centuries past. He also obtains the ability to talk to spiders, through them coming up with designs for intricate bridge structures he displays at his school science fair far beyond anything any of the other 10-year-olds could even hope to come up with.

Turns out, all of these items in the box are a last ditch plea for help from a culture much like our own. The kids, with the aid of Noah’s science teacher Larry White (Rainn Wilson) and his girlfriend Naomi (Kathryn Hahn), know they are running out of time and must somehow find a way to return Mimzy to her home. With government agents, led by Homeland Security official Broadman (Michael Clarke Duncan), hot on their tails, the Wilder children return to Whidbey to build a bridge to another world, the lives they’re trying to save as close and as important as their very own.

Got all that? For all its complexity (and that synopsis really only scratches the surface) the only thing you really need to know is that The Last Mimzy is nothing more than an unabashed peon to healthy living. I guarantee you that Al Gore will love this movie, the main point running throughout underlying the fact the world in which we live will only put out what we choose to put into it. It’s a balance of give and take, the choices we make now the ones determining the fates of our children’s children’s children.

Worthy sentiments, sure, but you can only take so much sermonizing (from the right or the left, it doesn’t matter which) before it all finally starts to make your head hurt. Thankfully, Shaye manages to keep the saccharine to a minimum, his two pint-sized stars totally beguiling winners viewers of any age will be more than eager to follow all the way until the very end.

The adult actors don’t make out near as well. Hutton and Richardson are solid, if unspectacular, but Wilson and Duncan are downright awful. I couldn’t stand either of them, didn’t buy them or their characters for a single second. Granted, it’s not entirely their own fault, the script treating the adults like afterthoughts not flesh and blood individuals. The thing is, everyone else manages to rise at least a little bit above this fact, these two the only ones to end up buried beneath their respective character’s sketchily fleshed out rubble.

Still, there is much entertainment to be found here. The title stinks, that’s as big an understatement as any I’ve probably ever uttered in a review, but that doesn’t mean the movie still doesn’t have its merits. The message behind it all is a good one and the kids at its core are a real surprise, making The Last Mimzy a fun family adventure impossible to ignore.

Film Rating: êê1/2  (out of 4)