Bob Hoskins acting projects may veer towards the commercial, but when it comes to taking his turn behind the camera its a very different story, as his quirky debut effort The Raggedy Rawney proved. His second film comes complete with an equally interesting premise, but sadly the end result turns out to be a highly sentimental New Agey childrens fable destined to collapse under the weight of this summers more ambitious kiddie fare.
Young Mikey (Lavendal) stumbles upon the end of the rainbow in a derelict siding. Having convinced his pals that hes not a few shades short of a full spectrum, Mikey leads them to the right spot and theyre sucked up and catapulted from New Jersey to a Kansas cornfield. However, no one actually believes theyve really travelled over the rainbow except Mikeys eccentric grandfather (Hoskins, sporting the requisite ponytail and accent). But while they were riding the colours, one of them stole a few lumps of gold, thereby damaging the rainbow. And as the world starts to lose its colour, they have to devise a plan to restore the balance.
Since the main prerequisites of a boys-own adventure are fast moving action, a few daring chases and plenty of laughs, its strange that none of the above are in evidence. The film slumbers along aimlessly for half-an- hour before things hot up, and even the centrepiece rainbow sequence fails to capture the imagination. The only half-hearted attempt at humour is an awkward interlude of slapstick involving Dan Aykroyd as a dimwitted sheriff. With 20 minutes shaved off, an emergency injection of humour and less laboured direction, there could have been some fun to be had, but for a film obsessed with colour this has just too many shades of grey.