Though targeted at kids and their explosive imagination, CJ7 misses the mark as the story is advanced and presented with subtitles causing many members of the younger audience to become lost and uninterested.
Wanting the best for his son Dicky, Ti works all day at a construction site to pay for his son's elite private school education. However, Dicky has always had a problem meshing with his schoolmates, and even though his father has the best of intentions, Dicky just cant seem to fit in. But when Ti goes to the junkyard to find his son a new pair of shoes, he discovers a mysterious orb that looks to be hours of fun for Dicky. But much to his surprise, the tiny orb reveals itself to Dicky as an uncanny 'pet' with special powers. Armed with his 'CJ7,' Dicky attends school with a new sense of confidence, one that just might help the out-of-sync boy fit in with the schoolmates who seemed to be too far ahead to care.
With a story that strongly targets kids, and a lead actor that uses his imagination to no end, I must say that I was strongly disappointed in the way that CJ7 was presented. Consisting of a film that is spoken entirely in Mandarin, CJ7 contained subtitles that ran throughout the film's entirety. Usually this wouldn't be a problem, but when you are trying to entertain kids by having them read, or attempt to read, during the entire film, you will lose them before the opening credits finish rolling. There is just no way around it.
In addition the story is kind of unfitting for the film. Though it contains some extreme measures of imagination, which is always good for a kids film, the subject matter seems advanced and out of place for the young age group. On the other side of the spectrum, the story wasn't too appealing to the grown up crowd. Plagued by imagination and innocence, the story got lost in the shuffle, not picking one age bracket to focus on, and thus losing them all in the process.
However, with all that said, I must admit that the film was still somewhat entertaining as it did contain a few laughs and an overall fun story. But I would probably never see it again, and truly feel that I am one of a few that would consider it a decent film. Thus I must mark this one as being average, nothing more "“ nothing less.
