'Kid' has delusions of grandeur

"The Kid Who Would Be King" is a mostly frustrating experience. The ingredients were there for a smart, entertaining movie, but writer-director Joe Cornish seemed to think he was making an epic, not a modest, pleasing children's film. So a story that should have been 80 minutes, tops, is stretched to 120 minutes, on the back of child actors who can barely hold the screen.

Here's a case of a filmmaker betting the house on a good, not great, hand. The premise is that many, many years ago, during the reign of King Arthur, Arthur's evil sister, Morgana, was condemned to live as a prisoner in the underground netherworld.