'The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens' : A Feeble Family Film.

Here's the scenario: It's Saturday night and you're at the video store looking for a video that the whole family can watch.You check out the latest Disney offering but (horrors of horrors) that particular shelf is empty . So your search continues.

Then you see a film titled The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens. "Hmmm", you think to yourself while scratching your chin, " It looks like a Harry Potter kind of movie. My family will just love it." And look, it even has a Dove Seal which is only bestowed upon "family friendly movies." You've just hit the entertainment jackpot! Or so you think. Then you're at home, you and your family crammed in front of the forty six inch big screen TV ; bowls of popcorn and bottles of ice cold soda ready to be voraciously consumed as you prepare to enjoy your Saturday night movie treat. However, after you've finished watching the film, you realize what a cinematic "dog with fleas" it actually is, while your family (or whom ever is still in the room by the end of this clod fest) begins to seriously doubt your taste when it comes to picking movies. The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens can be best described as a low budget, bargain basement Harry Potter film complete with poor acting, a moronic script and cheesy, unconvincing special-effects. The plot, such as it is, concerns is about a kid named Billy Owens ( Dalton Mugridge, a dreadful child actor) who on his eleventh birthday is chased by a school bully into William Thurgood's Treasure Trove and Pawn shop. Thurgood (WWE's Roddy Piper) sells Billy a magic wand and from there the viewer( the poor,poor viewer) is whisked away to an unmagical land of trolls wearing obvious rubber masks, cheap cavern sets shot in extreme close up and an evil cartoon dragon that looks like was stolen from a video game. As for the actors(and I use that term loosely), you'll find more stars in a spoon full of chicken and stars soup than in this feeble fable.This movie is populated by a group of unknowns who will probably retain that status for the rest of their acting careers.The sole name actor being Roddy Piper who instead of playing another tough guy role stretches his thespian muscles by essaying the role of the disheveled antique store owner.But watching Piper expand his acting chops is not a valid reason to rent this dull, threadbare,sorry excuse for a movie. Then to add insult to injury, at the films conclusion the bully who taunted Billy and his friends is seen in the cavern where the dragon was defeated grabbing the sword used to kill the beast. The title,"To be continued," flashes across the screen and the film ends. But wait. There's more. Or to put it more aptly, less.The end credits show a series of bloopers that are about as amusing and entertaining as a root canal and seem to go on for an eternity as the producers thank everybody they could possibly think of who had anything to do with the movie.They even list the parents of the child actors in the credits.How stupid is that? But however,there is one silver lining: I have another MTI Home Video drink coaster to add to my collection.