To answer some of Maradontia's questions: they use stock battle footage mainly up front under the long, expository captions and voiceover. I'm guessing the most actors on screen at any time is maybe 15, and I'm not sure they really show them with a large army since to save my sanity I fast-forwarded a lot-- it seems like things get decided by magic rather than battles. I think Libertine the dove is an actress in a big white dress who talks about their destiny. Most of what she says gets repeated by Maya and Joey as questions, i.e., "What do you mean by destiny?" The "nude" scene is shot through bushes, teasing but really showing nothing. She walks in the Lake of Blood with a bare back, then she and Joey have to come out and must not dry themselves but let the lake water dry on them. This leaves her standing sideways behind a bush teasing side boob, but actually looks like she's wearing some kind of bra. Dialogue gem when Maya asks Joey, "Are you dried up yet?"
I'm going to characterize this, then go chronologically: Maya and Joey are chased around and run into various supernatural helpers and guides who save them - deus ex machina - then give long, expository speeches. Villains talk with epically long, inexplicable pauses between their words: I guess it's supposed to be dramatic, like Captain Kirk. The closest anyone comes to sounding human in their acting is the guy who plays Joey, but he plays the same note ad nauseam. Not his fault, it's the script. Woman who played chatty dove may have been okay. Gloria is just awful. After the Lake of Blood, Maya and Joey end up with a white beanie that makes them invisible, and I'm confused then because it cuts to Appolyan's Dungeon and he's asking how these human children won, but I'm not sure I saw anything that made it look like they won. The last 14 minutes is various baddies talking - epic pauses between words - about getting revenge.
Chronologically:
Opens with lots of battle and castle stock footage and skies on fire, etc, under captions and voiceover giving the back story. Here, verbatim, is a caption page I'm guessing they lifted straight from Shakespeare: "But to fulfill this command a lot of blood was spilled across the Earth." Maybe this had been shortened from: "But to fulfill this command a lot of blood was spilled across the Earth and stuff."
Maya and Joey walking around, eat apple, seem to enter another land, get chased by guys on horseback, then fall asleep. For some reason, we end up in New York, where we see Professor Epstein wake up. Some guy is teaching art in high school, but he has to leave. When drama girl asks, "WHY IS THERE EVIL?! WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?!", the art teacher says, "It's complicated. I have to go, but Professor Epstein will explain it."
Fast-forwarded, but I think Epstein was explaining the Maradonia version of where evil is from.
19 minutes in, baddies relay word that humans have entered Maradonia. Not sure which humans, since Maya is at home, and Mom is telling her she needs to stand up for herself at new school.
Maya gets bullied, but then beats the bully up and gets sent to the principal.
Minute 25, Maya and Joey go to party. He shoves her in the pool, and she apparently has hit her head since she's face down in the water. She seems to have mermaid dream, but meanwhile Joey is looking at his sister unconscious and drowning and laughing his ass off. Man jumps in to save her.
All is forgiving minute 29 when Maya and Joey go to the beach. On the way, Gunter - seeming extremely gay, by the way - warns them not to go, people have been killed there. The kids don't care.
Minute 31, Joey wanders off, so Maya strips to a bikini and walks down toward the water. They cut in 2 shots of a whale shark under the surface. I think it was supposed to look like a normal, scary shark instead of the gentle plankton eater it is. Maya goes in, nothing happens, and she gets out and walks back to her stuff. To be fair, if I'd seen this in isolation and didn't know she was dumb as two bags of rocks, I'd think she had a pretty good body.
Maya searches for Joey past a no trespassing sign, finds him, and he leads them to cave, where they argue the same points many times, and Gloria sees that two guys are following them.
Minute 41, an African-American little person, their first guide/helper, tell them they've entered a world of magic and he's seen ravens looking for someone. There's some stuff about mermaids, hard to hear it because the wind was hitting the microphones and the dramatic Maradonia music in the background was playing way too loud. This should have been looped, but I'm guessing the used zero ADR.
Minute 46, Arabella the snake lady. Chatty dove tells them the snake lady means to harm them. No shit?! A snake is not a symbol of Goodness?!
49, a wizard with a snake headed staff, Oraculus, shows up to "protect and accompany" them. They next cut in footage of hooded riders, gorgeous waterfalls, and really cute monkey eating something, more waterfalls, then we're back with Maya and Joey in Central Florida.
Hooded women, maybe witches who traveled as ravens, give the most over-the-top villainy performances I've ever seen. I'm shocked no one glued on mustaches for them to twirl. One holds out perfume, which valedictorian Maya sniffs, then passes out. Joey is now concerned instead of laughing: his character arc.
A new guide/protector pops up to guide and protect them. Had to fast-forward, not sure how he dispatched hooded Meryl Streeps, but he tells maya and Joey a wall of fire is just an illusion, and they walk through it. (Sadly, he was truthful, it was just CGI.)
57, they enter a village of girls with spears, some of them actually pretty good-looking. Monticello talks a lot and finally gives them a lai, and they tell him about stuff we just watched, interspersing visuals we now have to watch yet again.
He asks them to stay, and lays out this gem: "For many years we experienced that great problems happen every day."
Joey mocks the villagers, so Maya slaps him. He apologizes. Some sort of tree monster is watching.
Here's where they have the fascinating discussion about the army ready for Maya and Joey, but I didn't notice them leading any army. Instead they talk about what sounds like Lake Lagoon.
Some Shaman dances around fire and calls forth the spirit of Gerry. Cut to the witches, I guess, reporting back to Appolyan.
I guess they've crossed 6 bridges, and the chatty dove tells them beasts of the underground are coming to kill them, and this is their test. MAYA: "Our test?! Is this for real?!"
The witches/sisters offer to let everyone else live and go free if Maya and Joey sacrifice themselves. They cry while trying to decide - fast-forward, fast-forward - ah, now they're on some sort of pyre, and as it burns, they scream like babies.
71, The knight Dionysus appears deus ex machina to save them. This is the stuff in the trailer where he knocks them down by tossing force balls. (One of the villains actually looks like he's trained with swords.)
He then guides Maya and Joey to one of Central Florida's wildlife encounter places. We see big cats in cages, and Maya petting a baby tiger, but they don't show them paying, so not sure how much this would cost ordinary humans. If you're a cockatoo fan, they got a good one.
Next is a red lake, I think maybe the Lake of Blood. They send brother and sister in naked - as described in previous post - and then they get the invisibility beanie. This is followed by 14 minutes of baddies discussing revenge - sorry, fast-forwarded - and finally closing credits.
Were there times during this recounting when you had trouble piecing together the narrative? Well, that's pretty much how it feels to watch this. Story, incoherent and moronic. Dialogue, worse. Acting, terrible.
Unless you're obsessed with the WTF dumbness of this family, I really think most members of this board will stop watching 15 minutes in. As I've said before, it's exactly the same awfulness you see in the 9 minute trailer, but with much more of the same.
