I know Little Nemo in Slumberland is a comic strip and movie adaptations but that’s about it. Previous to this new movie, the closest I ever got to the franchise was an obscure NES game that I never even played. So I went into this new movie with no expectations and have no takes on its accuracy to the source material.

So Slumberland is about a tween girl named Nemo who visits Slumberland in her sleep where she meets Flip, a rakish dream man-beast with horns. Together, they go off on various adventures to find her lost father (she also deals with her waking life).

Jason Momoa plays the rogue character in a bit of a turn for him as an actor. And total credit for trying, but he just doesn’t pull off the goofball try-hard pseudo-badass very well. He just seems to be trying too hard and not pulling off the goofball thing convincingly. He kind of drags the movie down when he’s on screen, but he’s not the only problem.

Unfortunately, the movie is wildly uneven. I was really skeptical about it in its first act and considered giving it a scathing review. But things picked up/got more interesting as the movie goes along. Still not consistently and it probably runs a good twenty minutes too long.

On the plus side, this is definitely a kid’s fantasy adventure full of special effects and imaginative locations. It’s a pretty nifty looking film that has some fun ideas about the subconscious world. Sometimes it really picks up and offers some fun adventures that remind me a great deal of classic 80s adventure flick for kids.

I came around to enjoying this film pretty much. Momoa never got much better but I got used to him. The little girl (Marlow Barkley) was appealing and her uncle played by Chris O’Dowel is always pleasant to see on screen (even without his accent). This film works part of the time and is always pretty fun to look at so I’ll give it a decent score.

Score: 76