But his sense of visual enchantment easily accommodates the boys' preoccupation with all things Arthurian and the story's way of letting dreams of knighthood loom large and literal from time to time.

But this uneven, free-spirited adaptation by the director of "A Little Princess" does share much of that film's visual enchantment.

Ms. Naymark's enviable hair, with its springy curls and poetically inflamed color, accounts for much of this film's visual enchantment and interest.

If you're not a 12-year-old boy - and maybe if you are - you may find that the visual enchantment doesn't hold you for the whole journey.

Ms. Naymark's enviable hair, with its springy curls and poetically inflamed color, accounts for much of this film's visual enchantment and also serves as something of an emotional barometer for her teenage character, Claire.

Together they develop a sort of medieval fortress approach to life in Peter Chelsom's film, whose "sense of visual enchantment easily accommodates the boys' preoccupation with all things Arthurian" (Maslin).

Set during the third century B.C., the story of an assassination plot unfolds with such dazzling bursts of color and blurs of furious action that it might be easy to miss the nationalistic message tucked amid the visual enchantments.

You also enter a world of visual enchantments.

The movie was praised by Manohla Dargis of the New York Times, noting "Innocence doesn't just reveal a wealth of visual enchantments; it restates the case that there can and should be more to feature-length animations than cheap jokes, pathos and pandering."