Kids might enjoy seeing the freedom the siblings experience in this movie version of Swallows and Amazons, as they sail to an island and set up camp without any adult supervision.

| Sep 25, 2024

The pace is slow initially, but stick with it.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2018

The Enid Blyton-esque, picture-book-pretty vibe of the production is irresistible throughout.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 6, 2018

Parental supervision is little more than a wry nod of approval in this natural light-drenched adventure that comes complete with three old-fashioned cheers for the grumpy housekeeper who nonetheless makes them a cake before they set off.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 29, 2017

I'll leave the new version to an audience who are either coming to Ransome for the first time or found him a bit dull... Because I'll have to concede, albeit through gritted teeth, that they might like this all-action, espionage-soaked adaptation.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 19, 2017

Celebrating childhood innocence and the power of imagination, this old-fashioned charmer might ultimately appeal more to nostalgic adults than kids in the social-media age.

| Jul 14, 2017

As clunky as the movie can feel, there's a winning toughness to its unsentimental view of childhood and its nostalgia for a pre-digital age.

| Jul 13, 2017

This is the sort of nostalgic, dreamlike family film parents and grandparents will find -- perhaps more so than their offspring -- perfectly pleasant viewing.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 25, 2017

This new version of Arthur Ransome's 1930 kindling and pemmican epic is perfectly pretty.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 18, 2016

As is, this is still a lovely tale of a child's first flush of independence. But anyone over about 7 years old will find the clumsy filmmaking hard to take.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 13, 2016

Swallows and Amazons still evokes a golden, prelapsarian age when kids were free range and mucking about in boats was the acme of excitement.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 27, 2016

It is all shocking, and absolutely splendid. The music turns your heart to mush and the performances are flawless, including a cameo from Harry Enfield as the farmer.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 25, 2016

Where the film really takes wing is when the Swallows and Amazons are trying to steal each other's boats, making expeditions by moonlight or are planning just what they're going to eat after dropping their provisions in the lake.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 25, 2016

Philippa Lowthorpe's feature debut is pretty, CGI-free and slightly tame, but sweet and nostalgic fun.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 22, 2016

If I can persuade my kids to sit still for five minutes and watch a film that doesn't include a superhero or a bloody YouTuber, they will be as delighted and entranced as I was. Pip pip!

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 21, 2016

In an age in which the teen heroes and heroines of YA adaptations are routinely given ridiculously proficient combat skills, there's something nice about watching kids mucking about and learning basic wilderness skills.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 21, 2016

An engaging if sometimes pedestrian adaptation of the Arthur Ransome children's novel.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 21, 2016

It's wholesome and sweet enough but a bit dull.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 21, 2016

Despite an incongruous action sequence on the roof of a puttering steam train and a beefed-up espionage plot, the thrills here are reassuringly low-key.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 21, 2016

Swallows and Amazons is an old-fashioned treat, if not exactly ground-breaking cinema.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 19, 2016