Movie Review by Nigel A. Messenger
Starring: Maxwell Caulfield, Chantell Stander, Mia Sara, Jeff Fahey, Peter Bonner Director: David Lister
Tom (Maxwell Caulfield) is a writer of children’s books – fairy stories to be precise. As in numerous children’s movies his wife has died and he lives with his young daughter, so yes you’ve guessed it, there’s plenty of room for possible romance in the storyline without it crossing into any marital dilemmas.
His biggest fan is a little fairy who sits at the bedroom window at night listening to the fairy stories he reads to his daughter.
One night Crystal the fairy (Chantell Stander) gets knocked off the window ledge, chased by a dog and flies into a tree knocking herself out. The accident causes her to change into a human and at the same time temporarily lose her memory.
Crystal and Tom basically end up falling in love but Crystal can only stay human for seven days and must then return to being a fairy or else the baddie of the story, the Collector (Jeff Fahey) will kill her. There are also two ‘little people’ Oddkin (Peter Bonner) and Bodkin ( Big Mick) who are transported from the fairy world to get Crystal back, they’re sort of fairy private detectives who do a bumbling comedy double act which is really quite amusing.
DAZZLE has its fair share of plot ‘flaws’ and certainly won’t win any Oscars, but it’s not been made for film critics anyway. Its target audience is children, probably 5 to 12 year olds depending on the child and to that end DAZZLE will entertain your young children quite nicely, and it’s watchable for the parents too. Jeff Fahey really does deserve a mention for an excellent baddie as the Collector, as does Chantell Stander who plays Crystal because she is so pretty. It’s also nice to see Maxwell Caulfield back on screen again and Mia Sara turns in a good ‘seductress’ even though it’s very tame – remember the young target audience.
For a low budget movie the special effects are very good too so all in all this is just under an hour and a half’s worth of pretty good entertainment for those hard to entertain young children and just might give you a break one afternoon and even make you smile, and I’m sorry, but I really do fancy Crystal!
