The Indian in the Cupboard **½ (1995, Hal Scardino, Litefoot, Lindsay Crouse, Richard Jenkins) – Classic Movie Review 4068

Director Frank Oz’s 1993 children’s movie boasts a screenplay by Melissa Mathison, the writer of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and adapter of The BFG (2016).

In the story, a nine-year-old boy called Omri (Hal Scardino) is given an old cupboard by his brother and a little plastic Indian figure by his best friend as his birthday presents. Omri soon finds a way to bring his toys alive in Mathison’s pleasant adaptation of the children’s novel by Lynne Reid Banks. Pleasant though the movie is, perhaps it doesn’t quite push hard enough to able to fully please and satisfy adults as well as the main target audience of kids.

The special effects by Industrial Light and Magic are okay rather than their usual actual magic.

Also in the cast are Litefoot as Little Bear, Lindsay Crouse as Mom, Richard Jenkins as Dad, Rishi Bahat, Steve Coogan, Vincent Kartheiser, David Keith, Sakina Jaffrey, Nestor Serrano and Ryan Olson.

Scardino beat more than 500 kids auditioning in 20 cities to get the part. He loved the excitement of making the movie, quickly learned his lines and never forgot them.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4068

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