With Jim Sabatini

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Rated: G
Reviewed by: Frank
Release date: November 16, 2007	Released by: Twentieth Century Fox

While Dustin Hoffman sounds about the same as he did in Rainman his 243 year old character presides over a most interesting unique toy store.

The non-complex script allows Hoffman to play a Willy Wonka style character who is running out of new shoes, and he has a life time supply of shoes. When the last pair are used up he will pass on. Natalie Portman's Molly Mahoney is a young composer who works in the emporium and has an attachment to the unique toys who have lives of their own. Toys like a mobile with live fish and the walls turn gray from red as the toy store begins to fail in its life as Magorium approachs the end of his.

Eric Applebaum (Zach Mills) is a serious hat collector - his room is filled with all styles and colors, but his relationship to the emporium and Molly are part of the driving force in this joyful pleasant comfortable fantasy that deals with life and death and how life goes on with the memory of a childlike silly leader who can't be forgotten.

Magorium is not overwhelming but it is enjoyable.