The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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The House of Magic
Family · Fantasy · Animation · 2013
Thunder, an abandoned young cat seeking shelter from a storm, stumbles into the strangest house imaginable, owned by an old magician and inhabited by a dazzling array of automatons and gizmos. Not everyone welcomes the new addition to the troupe as Jack Rabbit and Maggie Mouse plot to evict Thunder. The situation gets worse when the magician lands in hospital and his scheming nephew sees his chance to cash in by selling the mansion. Our young hero is determined to earn his place and so he enlists the help of some wacky magician's assistants to protect his magical new home.
Movie details
The House of Magic
“One lost little cat. One magical adventure.”
2013 Family · Fantasy · Animation 1h 25m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.2 / 10
7.9K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
76 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
47 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
6.3 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
Thunder, an abandoned young cat seeking shelter from a storm, stumbles into the strangest house imaginable, owned by an old magician and inhabited by a dazzling array of automatons and gizmos. Not everyone welcomes the new addition to the troupe as Jack Rabbit and Maggie Mouse plot to evict Thunder. The situation gets worse when the magician lands in hospital and his scheming nephew sees his chance to cash in by selling the mansion. Our young hero is determined to earn his place and so he enlists the help of some wacky magician's assistants to protect his magical new home.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The House of Magic?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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Peter is searching for his long-lost sister when he crosses paths with a fortune teller in the market square. His only question is: is his sister still alive? The answer, that he must find a mysterious elephant and the magician who will conjure it, sets Peter off on a journey to complete three seemingly impossible tasks that will change the face of his town forever.
Welcome to Smelliville
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The Oggly family arrive at the municipal rubbish dump of Smelliville and must look for a new home, but they never feel really welcome anywhere. They stink and are for most humans just a tad too oggly. When Firebottom, the family dragon, crash-lands on the run-down rubbish tip of the small town of Smelliville, the Ogglies at once feel at home. And it's here they want to stay.
Charming
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Three fairy tale princesses find themselves engaged to the same guy, Prince Charming.
Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure
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A blue harvest moon will rise, allowing the fairies to use a precious moonstone to restore the Pixie Dust Tree, the source of all their magic. But when Tinker Bell accidentally puts all of Pixie Hollow in jeopardy, she must venture out across the sea on a secret quest to set things right.
In Your Dreams
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Stevie and her little brother Elliot journey into the wildly absurd landscape of their own dreams to ask the Sandman to grant them the perfect family.
Tinker Bell
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Dragon Rider
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Where it lives
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Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.
Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Ben Stassen · Jérémie Degruson
Written by
Ben Stassen · James Flynn · Domonic Paris
Brianne Siddall
Thunder / Dylan (voice)
Robin Atkin Downes
Carlo / Jack / Zoltar (voice)
Cinda Adams
Nurse Baxter (voice)
S
Sage Sommer
Izzy (voice)
Shanelle Gray
Maggie (voice)
D
Doug Stone
Mr. Lawrence (voice)
Grant George
Daniel (voice)
Court is in session
Put The House of Magic on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.