Eddie Izzard's "cheeky, anarchic performance" was the saving grace of Five Children And It, based on E Nesbit's classic children's novel. He plays a garrulous sand fairy who brings excitement into the lives of five children, including Finding Neverland's Freddie Highmore. They may all have wished for more magic at the box office though, as this hardly made a dent.

Creature Features

A 'Making Of' documentary is split into eight bite-sized featurettes and includes interviews with cast and crew and a smattering of behind-the-scenes footage. The best of these finds Eddie Izzard in the sound booth literally bouncing off the walls and garbling nonsense dialogue - occasionally it sounds as though he's channelling a distant fax machine. And there's more of the same in Eddie's Outtakes (audio only) where he riffs on matters ranging from paper bags and handbags to cheese in a bag.

Cameras venture into Jim Henson's Creature Shop for a look at the animatronics behind 'It'. However this is mostly just effects bods talking about the "dinosaurish" effect they wanted to achieve with a few behind-the-scenes snapshots and test footage thrown in. There really isn't a tangible feel for the work that went into creating 'It' and next to nothing on the CG process. Conversely, The Kids Fly featurette does peel back the layers to provide a comprehensive picture of how this sequence was put together. However, there's very little information on production design although a gallery of early sketches is included along with a few storyboards.

Hello, Mr Sandman

Inside The Lab is a brief exploration of horrific kiddie Horace's basement laboratory, but there's little to disgust or amaze children here. Likewise Uncle Albert's Makeup is pretty unremarkable stuff - essentially Kenneth Branagh grousing about having to wear a latex bald spot. Along with the standard outtakes reel, that about wraps it up. There isn't much fun for the kids and while the 'making of' section offers some interest, this is far from being the 'it' thing on DVD.

EXTRA FEATURES