Mediocre, even for a kids story. The main character is poorly written. Fegley did a good enough job acting, but the writing was just poor. I loved the cat. Actually, the cat was the best character in the movie. So perfect for this sort of film. The cat and the sandwich, just awesome.

Overall, I was hoping for so much more. I loved the 1001 Arabian Nights concept, but the setup was so forced as to just be stupid. The lure and trap was so silly as to be lame. The lure could have been so much more intriguing and more integrated with he trap. Are we really to believe Alex is so stupid/rude as to enter a stranger's apartment and eat a piece of pie that is sitting out? Then after being trapped and confronted, Alex says the one thing the witch wants to hear even though it makes absolutely no sense for the kid to even say it. How would anyone jump to the conclusion that writing scary stories would be "useful". That could have been so much more interesting if development had been allowed to happen in a more natural way. Some repartee between Alex and Natacha would have been a great way to get things going. It would have cost a few minutes and got the movie off to a much better start. There was definitely enough slowness that could have been cut to free up the time.