A young boy (Jahzir Bruno) is taken in by his grandmother (Octavia Spencer) after his parents are killed in a car accident. In the grocery store, a strange woman (Josette Simon) offers him candy but he is frightened and runs back to his Grandma. Grandma tells him that there are evil creatures called witches that want to destroy children and once you are targeted, they will keep trying. Realizing this means they are in danger, she takes the boy to a fancy hotel to hide out, not realizing that the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway) is holding a convention there to disseminate a new potion that will turn children into mice so they will be exterminated. The boy and Grandma must find a way to stop this evil plot before it's too late.
There was a lot of backlash about this when it came out and it flopped pretty hard, but it's not that bad. Spencer is always solid and Hathaway seems like she's having a ball as the villain. The costumes are fantastic and the soundtrack is good, if not revelatory. The CGI is a little dodgy but good enough for a kids' movie. Really, my only complaint is that they filed every conceivable edge off this story. It's so sanitized, not only is there no sense that the children are ever actually in danger, the boy (who is never named in this adaptation) makes a comment about how as a mouse, he'll live just as long as his grandmother so they can die together and he'll never have to experience loss again. The 1990 version by contrast seems shockingly harsh and much, much darker.
This is probably another of Warner Bros. trying to cut their losses, but it is nowhere to be found on streaming channels. If you have small children and you want something more silly than scary, you're going to have to find an alternate source, yar, matey.
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