I just watched the Ebert and Roeper review (actually Roeper and someone else) of this movie and both critics absolutely hated this movie. I don't understand why. I thought it was pretty good. Sure, it wasn't too realistic, but what movie is? After watching it I was totally shocked by the review. Usually I can see their point but not here.
shareI didn't read their reviews but I can assume that they didn't like the movie for the same reason I did not.
1. What did the characters learned during the course of the movie? How did they change? My answer is, that the only change is in the girl: she learned how to love her father, but she paid with it WAY too much: she lost her mind (see #2). If we assume she had it coming, because his father was also a coo-coo, it's still not a very nice message: you're eventually going to go mad, just like your father, BUT IT'S OK, BECAUSE YOU'LL BE HAPPY. And I don't think that people should be making movies "promoting" that losing one's mind is cool because then you get to be happy.
2. There is no treasure, as much as there is no naked Chinese washing up. THAT COULDN'T BE MORE OBVIOUS. She went coo-coo, just like her dad.
3. "Her dad cares for her and she gets her a dishwasher". Hummmm I had several people in my life that truly loved me but they kept hurting me. The thing you HAVE to do is to distance yourself from them. Great, she has a dishwasher - but she doesn't have a home where she can plug it, she doesn't have an education (and, let me remind you, she doesn't have the treasure), she doesn't have a job. She only has a Volvo and a dishwasher. THANKS DAD.
4. For the daughter character, the motivation is too materialistic. She wants the treasure because it's MONEY for her. Yes, I agree that she needs money. But her MOTIVATION before her father came was actually better then after that (= BAD MOVIE!). She changed but in a bad way. She thinks that you can get rich by hunting for a treasure. Treasure-hunts provide good story, but if your morale from it is "I can get rich quickly" - well, you get Bernards Madoffs all over the world.
There's more but I can't bother.
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Thank you, Third-Age-Mage. And to the original poster-- I'm not surprised Ebert and Roeper hated this movie. Since when did critics EVER have good taste in anything? Roger Ebert also bashed Fight Club, which I think is an amazing book and film, and nearly everyone I talk to love that movie, too and think it's brilliant.
KOC is a BRILLIANT movie... touching, quirky, and a great story.