Surprisingly, when my five year old daughter persuaded me to get this movie, I didn't find it as awful as I had anticipated. Having said that, it is tremendously cheesy - particularly the scenes focusing on the married couple, Grace and Patrick, who aid the blue poppets in their quest to defeat evil wizard Gargamel (the ever-brilliant Hank Azaria). Heavy-handed morals about the importance of family life over career and the beauty of new life are always going to be present in this kind of family fare, however these did become hard to stomach after a while and the 105 minutes running time is certainly not too short. There are enough pratfalls, however, to keep the kids entertained, meaning that this DVD is worth purchasing for those wet autumn saturdays when you need some respite from the little darlings.