Tuck Everlasting

Walt Disney has always been hit-or-miss when it comes to bringing beloved children's books to the big screen, and this adaptation of Natalie Babbitt's novel is a little of both. Beautiful Alexis Bledel (of the WB's Gilmore Girls) plays a curious, affluent teenage girl, stifled by her stiff-upper-lip period parents, who gets lost in the woods and discovers an enticing young man whose family has been made immortal by drinking from a fountain-of-youth local spring. Afraid of being discovered by an outside world that would covet what they've come to consider a curse, the Tuck clan refuses to let Bledel go, even though she isn't exactly aching to leave, having gained both relative freedom and fresh romance with the handsome, worldly Jesse (Jonathan Jackson). Warm, spirited, and fairly entertaining family fare that gets by on the enchantment factor and good chemistry between Bledel and Jackson, Tuck Everlasting also has more trappings of the era in which it was made (e.g. Jackson's boy-band heartthrob cliché appeal) than of the turn-of-the-19th-century era it depicts. Optional. [Note: DVD extras include commentary by director Jay Russell and costars Jonathan Jackson, Alexis Bledel and Scott Bairstow; commentary by Russell and screenwriter James V. Hart; a “Lessons of Tuck” viewing mode with popup discussion segments hosted by Jackson and featuring cast, crew and regular kids; and the nine-minute featurette “A Visit with Natalie Babbitt,” in which the novel's author talks about the writing process. Bottom line: a cool extras package for a sure to be popular teen film.] (R. Blackwelder)