When their pilot father (Alex Jennings) is sent behind enemy lines during the First World War, 13-year-old Cyril (Jonathan Bailey), 12-year-old Anthea (Jessica Claridge), 11-year-old Robert (Freddie Highmore), eight-year-old Jane (Poppy Rogers) and baby Lamb (Alec and Zak Muggleton) are evacuated to the countryside to stay with their bumbling Uncle Albert (Kenneth Branagh) in his dilapidated mansion.

The children are taken under the wing of zany housekeeper Martha (Zoe Wanamaker) but rarely see their uncle, who demands absolute silence while he writes his book.

They also make an immediate enemy of Albert's son Horace (Alexander Pownall), an evil scientist in the making with a laboratory in the basement full of pickled "monsters".

While exploring one day, the children stumble upon a secret passage that leads to a beach.

There, they dig up an 8,000-year-old sand fairy called a Psammead (voiced by Eddie Izzard), who agrees to grant the excited quintet one wish every day.

The ancient sand-dweller - It, as the children call him - takes impish delight in misinterpreting the youngsters' demands, causing maximum devastation until sunset when the power of each wish fades.

When devastating news arrives from their mother (Tara Fitzgerald), Robert takes matters into his own hands to rescue his father from the battlefields and reunite his fractured family.

Five Children And It is a likeable adaptation of an old favourite and doesn't stray too far from E Nesbit's source text.

The additional characters of Uncle Albert and Horace set the scene for broad comic interludes, even though Branagh is wasted in his role.

The lead children don't gel convincingly as a family unit and their performances, on the whole, are stilted.

Thankfully, the genius of Izzard sparks the film to life.

Providing a hysterical, rambling voiceover, the surreal stand-up creates moments of comic genius, such as his rescue from Horace's laboratory, where he tells Robert to use "a monkey wrench... or perhaps a monkey with a wrench".

The theme tune to television quiz show Countdown and deadpan one-liners pour forth from It's withered lips, mining one belly laugh after another.

It's a virtuoso turn from Izzard - every time It disappears from the screen, the film founders.

The computer generated effects, live action and animatronics courtesy of Jim Henson's Creature Shop are largely convincing, although some of the blue screen work is rough around the edges.

Ironically, adults will probably find more to enjoy in Five Children And It than the pint-sized target audience, especially anyone partial to Izzard's mental flights of fancy.

Updated: 09:50 Friday, October 22, 2004