Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium puts Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Jason Bateman and youngster Zach Mills together for a great movie about imagination and magic and believing in yourself.

Dustin Hoffman is Mr. Magorium, a 243 year old toy store owner. But it’s not just any toy store. This toy store is magical with a life of it’s own. Mr. Magorium decides it’s his time to depart and he wants to leave his toy store to his unconfident manager, Molly Mahoney (played by Portman). Mahoney was an extraordinary pianist in her youth, but now finds herself struggling to find the right notes to create her own masterpiece. She feels stuck.

To prepare to give his store to Mahoney, Mr. Magorium hires an accountant (which he assumes means “a counting mutant”). The “mutant” they hire is Henry (played by Bateman). Henry has forgotten how to let loose and use his imagination. Instead he’s a just a stuffy accountant who cares only about numbers and paperwork.

With Mr. Magorium’s departure the store begins to have a temper tantrum with the walls bubbling up, the toys misbehaving and then everything turning gray. Nine-year-old Eric tries to get Mahoney and Henry to believe in the magic of the toy store; and more important get Mahoney to believe in herself.

I really enjoyed this movie. And with all kids movies, my test is “do my kids sit still through the whole movie?” For this movie they did. It’s a great family flick. All of the actors did a fantastic job in their roles, but I loved Dustin Hoffman’s quirkiness the best. The plot kept us interested. And the animation was awesome. I highly recommend this movie.

We’ll give it 4 1/2 beans out of 5.