Mark Mason

Perfectly serviceable – at points even charming: Four Kids and It reviewed

The Psammead steals the show largely because he's voiced by Michael Caine

Star quality: the sand monster — small, grouchy and voiced by Michael Caine 
issue 04 April 2020

This film contains flying children, time travel and a sand monster that lives under a beach — yet the most incredible thing of all is that a family get to go on holiday. They actually leave their house, drive down an actual motorway, rent an actual seaside cottage and go for actual walks, passing well within two metres of actual other people! And not once do Derbyshire police film them with a drone, then post intimidating footage of it on the internet.


The movie’s producers couldn’t have known they’d be releasing their creation into a locked-down world, but now that they have, who’s to say more people won’t watch it at home than would have watched it at the cinema? We are literally a captive audience. And there are certainly worse films to spend your time and money on. This is a perfectly serviceable — indeed at points rather charming — version of Jacqueline Wilson’s 2012 novel Four Children and It, which was itself inspired by E.

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