Holes

A rare kids' flick that engages youthful intellect and heart instead of patting youngsters on the head and spoon-feeding them stock anecdotes and tie-in toys, Andrew Davis's Holes--based on Louis Sachar's Newbery award-winning YA novel--is a fun family flick about a smart, quiet teenager named Stanley Yelnats (Shia LaBeouf) who has been stuck at a parched, ghost-town-like juvenile rehabilitation center in West Texas--ironically called Camp Green Lake--for a crime he didn't commit. Forced to dig holes all day for the cruel warden (Sigourney Weaver) and her henchman (a scene-stealing Jon Voight sporting a graying Elvis pompadour, a villain's pencil mustache, and twitchy wild eyes), Stanley comes to suspect these two are up to something sinister--and soon discovers fate may be playing a hand since his own great-grandfather had been robbed of a fortune on this very spot by a beautiful bandit back in the Old West days, when Green Lake really was a lake. While multiple historical flashbacks hardly make for a sophisticated mystery, realizing how all the pieces fit together is as much fun on a kid-flick level as something like The Usual Suspects would be for adults. Recommended. [Note: Available in both widescreen and full screen versions, DVD extras include two audio commentaries (one by costars Shia LaBeouf, Khleo Thomas, Jake M. Smith, and Max Kasch; the other by director Andrew Davis and author/screenwriter Louis Sachar), the 11-minute featurette “The Boys of D-Tent” (including audition footage), the nine-minute making-of “Digging the First Hole,” six deleted scenes, a two-minute gag reel, a brief music video by the cast D-Tent Boys for “Dig It,” and trailers. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a solid adaptation of Sachar's beloved book.] (R. Blackwelder)