Acclaimed British child star Freddie Highmore must be on a retainer from Kleenex after appearing in a brace of tear duct-bruising weepies.

He's had us blubbing uncontrollably as JM Barrie's inspiration in Finding Neverland and now he has us crying like girls in E Nesbit's kiddie's classic.

He plays Robert, one of five children despatched to the dilapidated seaside home of their loopy Uncle Albert (Branagh) at the outbreak of the Great War.

Ordered to observe total silence so as not to disturb his writing they are also made to feel unwelcome by his tubby son Horace, a deadringer for a young David Mellor.

As you might imagine, not the most pleasant of greetings to a strange place.

Forbidden from entering the greenhouse they naturally disobey the command and find themselves - via a secret passage - on a secluded beach.

It's there that they find the Sand Fairy - bizarrely voiced in the modern idiom by Eddie Izzard - a reptilian creature who resembles a be-whiskered ET.

He has the power to grant them one wish a day - but it fades by sunset and the Sand Fairy isn't averse to mischieviously tinkering with the outcome.

Far from a bargain basement Harry Potter, this has an undeniable old-fashioned charm with seasoned performances from a very young cast.

Highmore is excellent as the young rebel missing his Royal Flying Corps pilot pop while Tara Fitzgerald actually manages to keep her clothes on as their mother.

Branagh queers Stephen Fry's pitch as the bumbling academic while it appears Izzard has been granted licence to write his own dialogue.

Highlights include a winged confrontation with a fleet of German Zeppelin airships heading for Britain and a full-size T-Rex licking its lips for a morsel of horrid Horace.

The sfx may not be up there with Shrek...but the plot is and that's really what matters.

Tim Evans