I went in with no idea what to expect. Enjoyed the first ten minutes with steampunk vibes and robots, the flying light globe bots were cute. The quality of the animation is admirable for not having the full weight of the Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks machine behind it. From the lip synch you could tell it had been made elsewhere and I am a long-time fan of European animation, so was gunning for the high production values. But as soon as our main characters started speaking I felt the ick creeping in. Entitled, backdated attitudes about women, children and authority. Simplistic ideas about property, inheritance and power. I know it's a kid's film and had low expectations for plot and attention span, but this really gave me Eastern bloc vibes from the get go. While the message to respect Mother Nature is admirable, I think every adult watching knows who the real Mother implied in this film is. It's not going to poison the minds of your kids but there's better cr@p out there. I enjoyed the literary villain. We all know publishers are the worst.

Did anyone watch this movie? Is this Russian botnight? I was pleasantly surprised with the opening. How it wanted to grasp a steampunk like magic. But everything was clunky. The story, the animation and the acting. Horrible from A to S.

The plot starts out questionable for children. A mail clerk (Pauly Shore) extorts the King for the hand in marriage of Princess Barbara (Haylie Duff). She escapes on her horse to the forest only to be captured by the monster Bogey (Jon Heder). He wants to ransom her. After this, things settle down to a Beauty and the Beast musical with Gaia thrown in.

The film was okay. I am not sure of the age of the target audience. Themes at times dark for younger kids, things silly for older ones.