It's hard to fathom for me why the media are so uniformly exultant about this. Granted, the production design and cinematography are gorgeous, and the source material is one of the best Dutch children's books to be published in recent years. But neither the story nor the characters have not survived the transfer to this medium. The pacing is mind-numbingly slow. The acting feels wooden and stilted, lines delivered abrubtly and without conviction. It seems to have been edited without any sense of either rhythm or pacing. And to top it off, the childish, over-the-top, redundant voice-over by the unnecessary storyteller made both my kids cringe. This must be yet another case of stars assigned for effort and the mere fact of being an ambitious Dutch production. Such a shame...