Product Description

A nine-year-old boy gets a plastic Indian and a cupboard for his birthday and finds himself involved in adventure when the Indian comes to life and befriends him.
Genre: Feature Film Family
Rating: PG
Release Date: 1-FEB-2005
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2481 in DVD
• Brand: SCARDINO,HAL
• Released on: 2001-07-03
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 96 minutes

Amazon.com
Young Hal Scardino stars as a sensitive boy who discovers a way to bring plastic toys to life in a locked cupboard. One of those toys, a 19th-century Iroquois warrior (played by actor Litefoot), was actually a real warrior now only several inches tall. A bond eventually develops between boy and warrior, and a six-shooting toy cowboy (David Keith). As with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Indian in the Cupboard (which was written by E.T. scribe Melissa Mathison) is about a magical visitor connecting with a lonely child. But director Frank Oz (In & Out) has made the film far too stiff and dramatically flat to get across the enchantment necessary to make the fantasy work. Watching this is like listening to someone who can't tell a good story to save his life, yet who is trying to captivate your attention and heart. --Tom Keogh

From The New Yorker
The fine children's book by Lynne Reid Banks has received a faithful treatment from screenwriter Melissa Mathison. Yet about all that comes through Frank Oz's direction of the story-involving a boy whose magic cupboard brings plastic toys to life-are the lessons in responsibility to others that the tiny Indian (played by the Native American rap singer Litefoot) teaches the boy (Hal Scardino). Their sweet, gawky interplay is winning; and David Keith, as a sensitive miniature cowboy named Boo-hoo Boone, pumps a great deal of energy into the mix. But Mathison's screenplay needed a director who could provide the kind of magic that Steven Spielberg gave her script for "E.T." Oz just tells the story, with little sense of wonder, and relies on Randy Edelman's sappy score to push the audience's buttons. -Bruce Diones
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Top flight entertainment for "tween" aged children
"The Indian in the Cupboard" is an excellent movie for tween-aged children (i.e., children between their pre-school and teen years). In this movie a boy discovers that he can bring small action figures to life by using a small, old, wooden cupboard. The first figure he brings to life is a Native American. As the story progresses, the boy learns important lessons about life from his new friend, "Little Bear."

The story is exciting without being frightening, educational without being stuffy, and fun without being extreme. "The Indian in the Cupboard" presents an excellent entertainment offering for pre-teens who often see too much programming centered on overstimulation of sight, sound, and action (e.g., Pokemon...).

I also like the fact that the boy in the story doesn't look like he stepped right out of an advertising agency, or off of the cover of a magazine. He is a regular guy...his hair is a little messy, his teeth haven't gone through an orthodontic program, and he wears normal clothes.

All in all, this is top-notch entertainment for the whole family. It's one of my children's favorites (girl, 10 yrs; boy 8 yrs; boy 6 yrs).

A definite keeper for your family's collection!

Happy viewing...and watch out for the rat!

Alan Holyoak

Toy Story Comes To Life....
This video made it to our family library long ago. Entertaining, enjoyable for adults and children, with relatively little violence (there are some battle scenes), it opens up avenues for dinner time conversation about reality, fantasy, Native Americans, friendship and bullies. In addition, watching this movie led us to the book series, which my then 6 year old listened to intently.

What we liked - fantasy mixed with reality, much like Small Soldiers or E.T. (though not nearly as good as E.T.) With the help of a magical key and cabinet, our hero, Omri, brings a figurine, Little Bear, to life (in miniature form). He watches Little Bear build a home and finds a wife for him. Omri's best friend, Patrick, doesn't quite understand the difference between play and real lives, and brings Boone, a cowboy and his horse to life, setting off a small battle between the two people.

Boone brings a touch of comic relief to the film, which deals with some serious issues. Death is lightly touched on, when Omri's first attempt to find a friend for Little Bear pushes an elderly figurine into cardiac arrest, with serious effects on Omri's comprehension of his 'toys.' War, too, is addressed slightly when he brings a tiny World War I medic back to care for a miniscule character's real life wounds.

Parallel to this story is Omri's move into a new neighborhood, away from his best friend and into some slight confrontations with bullies (further developed in the sequel to this video).

We started with the video, which led us to the book series (by Lynne Reid Banks). The video is almost as good as the book, with convincing special effects, good acting, entertainment and more meaningful after-movie talk than most children's. A good view, and if you get the version(s) with the figurines, they are very close to the movie miniatures!

Thumbs up from all of our family members - hope you enjoy it (and read the books!!!)

My goodness, what an insult to the book!!
We just got done reading this book in our homeschool so naturally I rented this movie hoping it would bring the words to life. This movie is a mere shadow of the book. Omri's family is nice and even the boy who plays him is okay. The Native American who played the "Indian" (Litefoot) did a wonderful job but the script was so pathetic. The boy who played Patrick was repugnant and not much of a real friend. One of the major things that just absolutely kills this movie for me is the excessive amount of cussing (at one point Omri even says a cuss word to his mom, and she responds with a proud, wide-mouthed grin). Not only that, but in one scene the boys even have the cowboy and Indian watching a raunchy music video, and plenty is shown to make it offensive. These were fatal mistakes in my opinion, I am sure I am not the only one who was turned off by these things. It would have been so awesome to see what a really good director could have done with this movie.