The Magic Lab is the story of how two lab techs - one older, one younger - grapple with solutions for people, and animated characters in everyday problems. The Magic Lab is a character itself, using animated, imaginary characters in an attempt to role play better behaviors and attitudes that children and adults face. The film uses music and animation to underscore these story lines and make 'lessons learned' fun and entertaining. The dialogue is in Spanish with English subtitles, which affects age appropriateness based on reading levels.
This film is both challenging and charming. The actors are engaging and attractive, although it takes a couple of minutes to get into Eli's (Elianne de la Pena) exaggerated style of acting, but she is adorable. As the themes of loyalty, honesty, excellence, friendship, optimism and love are slowly rolled out, the younger actors learn to 'magically' solve problems. Eventually the viewer meets imaginary animated characters that represent real actors in a make believe world called aqua life. The songs really help tie film segments together.
The characters in the film have a good script to follow. Even though the English translation has several inaccuracies, the ideas conveyed are wise words, succinctly spoken. The magic lab has lots of cool gizmo's and kids would love that they have to eat certain jelly beans in homeopathic doses to become the quality or value that they need to possess to solve their problems - candy with a fog machine to make it magic - yum!! That's just one of the reasons to like the film, along with upbeat kid-rock songs. And who doesn't like talking elephants and dinosaurs?
The structure of the show is well suited to cover the various values that they are underscoring. The dialogue is in Spanish and English subtitles are poorly written in about eight spots - bad spelling, wrong words and even one curse word that the translator was confused about as the curse word is not even correctly used. The word I'm referring to is a Spanish word that means angry and the English translation reads "pissed out!" Some people might be offended by it. But this happens only once. The characters do draw you in and the energy of the story is balanced and interesting. If this was played in a classroom setting it could be broken into parts, so that students could discuss the merits of the values being taught.
The Magic Lab has many moving parts and that is intriguing. The images are either live action or 2D animation. The acting grows on you as the characters become more and more real. There is definitely chemistry between them. All three of the main human characters develop as the story evolves, especially the young boy, Tino (Constantino Alonso), whose mood brightens and integrity improves with counseling by his sister and their lab coach, Eli.
The film's message is that you can always figure out a better way to do things with help from wise friends, and with faith (magic). By Nancy K., KIDS FIRST!
The Magic Lab introduces children to the concept of values, an explanation of how to apply them, and when to use them in combination to resolve a problem--and it teaches with play and plenty of music.
Eli, a "social" scientist, conducts a laboratory in which children (and adults) can learn how to acquire personal characteristics that enable them to problem solve effectively. She and Pau, her little assistant, help Tino understand why he feels angry and uncommunicative, and then work out a way to put things to rights with his friends.
This film's storyline presents quite sophisticated values. Many of these words, let alone their meanings, are likely to be unfamiliar: sociability, solidarity, loyalty, honesty, dignity, excellence, and love. In the play land of Living Water, children can create scenarios that are analogous to their own difficulties and then work them out in a safe space free of condescension and judgment. By and large, these values are presented in terms of absolutes: things are black and white, right and wrong. Perhaps this is a good starting point for young hearts and minds, and later they can explore the many shades of gray that are less than moral imperatives.
This movie uses live actors as well as animation. Eli and the children discuss Tino's dilemma, choose a value to apply, and select toy characters to participate in an animated play scenario. Animated characters are simple and colorful, appealing and recognizable, which provides a nice contrast to philosophical complexity. The film's spoken language is Spanish, and there are noticeable misspellings and translation errors in the English subtitles. Also, the subtitles are in a white font which makes them difficult to read when superimposed on the film.
Children will find all the rows of colorful glass jars in the laboratory appealing, as each of them contains a particular value. Eli literally feeds the chosen value, which looks like a glistening orb of sticky candy, to Tino...the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. After every segment exploring a particularly suitable value, there is a lively song to reinforce understanding. They are subtitled in Spanish (as well as English) so children can read and sing along. Music reinforces memory.
Tino is the character showing the most development. He begins the story sullen and untalkative because he is in a pickle. As he is drawn out by Eli, then given values and an understanding of how to apply them to his situation, he becomes more and more invested in the play scenarios. In the end, Tino decides for himself how he is going to handle cleaning up his own mess--no adult has handed him the script. Eli does give him a Love candy to share with his friend who will probably be mad about the outcome, but that's the extent of adult intervention other than providing the tools to create his own solution. That's a great lesson in empowering children while still keeping the gentlest guiding hand on the rudder.
I appreciate the smooth transitions from live actors to animation. I especially admire the parsing out done when presenting an explanation of Dignity. The music box ballerina, who spurned the affection of the Count, was required to pose like a statue for 60 minutes in order to participate in his dance pageant. Solomon, the wise toy elephant, asks her if she has reconsidered, and she steps off the timer with five minutes remaining. "Dignity is the limit you put on being offended. On being disrespected. And you should never allow that," explains Solomon to all her friends. He makes a fine distinction between being tested or being humiliated. In my opinion, this is a rich lesson for young children to understand, especially since there's such a prevalence of trendy "dares" on social media. Dares humiliate. Solomon also knocks out false dignity: acting dignified because someone has called you out on your questionable behavior. This lesson helps children calibrate their internal compass.
The film's message is: acquiring a set of personal values is like having a rainbow to chase away the storm clouds: the more values you have, the better decisions you can make.
I give The Magic Lab 4 out of 5 stars and recommend it for ages 5 to 12. It is great fodder for parent-child discussion, good medicine for developing character and a tonic for social dysfunction. I do recommend that the filmmaker address the issues of the subtitle - fix the misspelled words and poor grammar and change the color so they don't get lost. By Debra L., KIDS FIRST!
Eli is an inventor who has a laboratory where she has created a game to solve problems. She has bottles with value capsules and a screen with animated stories that complement the secret formula. Her assistant, Pau (10 years old), helps her in her experiments. Tino, his cousin (5 years old), arrives angry. Trying and seeing various values, they get Tino to resolve the conflict that has him in bad shape.
