At the beginning, Mr. Rice is giving Owen a decoder ring, but in the next scene Owen is throwing the ring away. Mr. Rice has died, and Owen's parents won't even let him go to the funeral. Owen sneaks in anyway and tapes part of the funeral from the balcony. Later in the treehouse, he wants to show his friends Gilbert, Veg and Funnel Head the tape, but there's a problem. So they don't believe he was there, and he doesn't get 'points' (the boys get points for each courageous or stupid deed).
Veg's father is the real estate agent handling the sale of Mr. Rice's house, which makes it easy for the boys to sneak in. There, they find clues to Mr. Rice's secret.
Simon is a potential friend for Owen, for reasons I won't mention. But because he has leukemia and has lost his hair, other boys make fun of him. For that reason and for reasons that would be spoilers, Owen refuses to be Simon's friend.
In some ways this resembled 'Stand by Me', though it's not nearly that good. And I didn't like that movie that much. It was occasionally creepy, with eerie music. One occasion that required this music was the presence of the local undertaker and his 1960 Cadillac hearse (technology and music made it clear this was the present, so I don't know why the hearse was so old, but who cares? It looked great). Owen showed a lot of intelligence in solving the mystery, and Bill Switzer and Zack Lipovsky were good together in their scenes. The solution to the mystery made an interesting and inspiring story.
David Bowie was good as the middle-aged Mr. Rice, not showing any signs of being a wild rock star, though he was only seen in flashbacks sharing his wisdom with Owen. Funnel Head's brother Percy more closely resembled Bowie in his younger days; he was quite a colorful character whose help was needed in solving the mystery.
This was a family movie, with a minimum of offensive content (there may have been bad language removed for TV). The worst thing was probably the bullies beating up on those they didn't like.
This wasn't bad.
Veg's father is the real estate agent handling the sale of Mr. Rice's house, which makes it easy for the boys to sneak in. There, they find clues to Mr. Rice's secret.
Simon is a potential friend for Owen, for reasons I won't mention. But because he has leukemia and has lost his hair, other boys make fun of him. For that reason and for reasons that would be spoilers, Owen refuses to be Simon's friend.
In some ways this resembled 'Stand by Me', though it's not nearly that good. And I didn't like that movie that much. It was occasionally creepy, with eerie music. One occasion that required this music was the presence of the local undertaker and his 1960 Cadillac hearse (technology and music made it clear this was the present, so I don't know why the hearse was so old, but who cares? It looked great). Owen showed a lot of intelligence in solving the mystery, and Bill Switzer and Zack Lipovsky were good together in their scenes. The solution to the mystery made an interesting and inspiring story.
David Bowie was good as the middle-aged Mr. Rice, not showing any signs of being a wild rock star, though he was only seen in flashbacks sharing his wisdom with Owen. Funnel Head's brother Percy more closely resembled Bowie in his younger days; he was quite a colorful character whose help was needed in solving the mystery.
This was a family movie, with a minimum of offensive content (there may have been bad language removed for TV). The worst thing was probably the bullies beating up on those they didn't like.
This wasn't bad.