Millions spins story, teaches lessons

If someone were to tell you that Danny Boyle ' s new movie Millions was about two brothers who find a sack full of stolen money and the adventures they had with it in the week leading up to Britain ' s transition to the Euro, they ' d be right. If they said it was about the thief that wants the money back and the widower dad who gets the girl, they ' d be right again, but either way they ' d have pretty much missed the point.

Millions is about a very curious thing: faith and how very odd a boy who truly has it would seem in a world more or less devoid of it. It ' s a movie about the corruptive effects of wealth. It ' s a movie about a little boy who wants to save the world and who is just crazy enough that he might actually do it someday.

The movie begins in standard fashion, with Damien, our hero played by Alex Etel, sitting in his cardboard box fort talking to the Patron Saint of Television when all of a sudden a big sack of money falls from the sky and nearly crushes poor Damien underneath.

Damien, naturally startled, runs to get his brother, Anthony (Lewis McGibbon), who immediately wants to put the money to good use, affording himself and company as fabulous a lifestyle as can possibly be arranged. Damien, however, has other ideas and consistently uses the money to aid the poor and downtrodden.

This makes for conflict until such time as the previous owner of the money, a creepy thief played by the legitimately terrifying Christopher Fulford, comes snooping around looking for his lost fortune. Then things really get interesting.

Alex Etel carries the movie really well for a kid, but at the end of the day he ' s still a little boy and his acting can be a bit wooden at times.

He plays the " I ' m a magical little boy who sees all the world with wide-eyed wonder " card for all it ' s worth, but he gets good mileage out of it so it doesn ' t get too old.

His filmic brother, Lewis McGibbon, also turns in a good showing as the greedy older brother.

These two are basically the workhorses of the movie, and they carry it reasonably well.

I also loved James Nesbitt as their widower dad. He was great. Plus, all the Saints were just brilliant. Good jobs were done all around.

Visually the movie is very pretty, but mostly in a bunch of little, subtle ways that don ' t make for good retelling in a review.

The only thing that was explicitly awesome was the way that the movie shows Damien ' s fantasy sequences.

I particularly liked the one in which he mentally built his new house from scratch on its future site. Other than those, though, the movie mostly falls into the category of " well-shot, " which, though not overtly laudable, still makes for a pretty film.

All in all, Millions is a good movie, if a bit of a morality play. Despite dipping oh-so-slightly into the maudlin at a few points, it manages to stay away from being too saccharine as a whole.

Certainly, though, it ' s not for everyone. One might find it a little too heart-warming or uplifting at times, but if you ' re into that sort of thing, then Millions is a great little flick for you.