Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium has all the ingredients. Who doesn’t like a little magic, a little wonder, and a good dose of Dustin Hoffman? Who can resist measures of the wildly charming Natalie Portman, the guileless Jason Bateman, and the magnificent Zach Mills?

And the movie is tasty enough. A nice bit of escapism with the trappings of childhood fantasy, toys that come to life, and a benevolent shopkeeper who encourages playing with the goods. The main characters are mostly appealing for both kids and adults. A very bright but never precocious nine-year-old boy named Eric Applebaum (Zach Mills), a sweet former music prodigy, Molly Mahoney (Natalie Portman), a buttoned-up but pleasant accountant, Henry (Jason Bateman), and of course, Mr. Edward Magorium (Dustin Hoffman), a magic toy store proprietor who claims to be over 200 years old.

The setting is fairly glorious as well. This emporium is crazy colorful, and the toys are by turns cute, fantastic, or engaging. Taking a page from Night at the Museum, director Zach Helm shows us wee construction dudes working hard on a job site, complete with a functioning port-a-potty. Also there are Slinky® toys that slink on their own, a room full of bouncing balls of every darn shape and size imaginable, and a very special tool known as “The Book.”

The book is what the store manager Mahoney consults when customers ask for something special, or something they can’t find on the shelves. She believes in the magic abilities of this huge book, as well as the enchanting power of Mr. Magorium’s store, and in the very special, other-worldly aspect that is Mr. Magorium himself, yet she has a hard time believing in her own talents. She’s been trying to compose a piano concerto, but finds herself stuck. Musician’s block, as it were.

And a block is precisely how Mr. Magorium tries to solve her dilemma. When Mahoney talks to him about perhaps her leaving her job to concentrate on music, he gives her something called a Congreve Cube. This cube is really just a solid block of wood, with no knobs, dials or openings. He assures her that this block of wood will help, but he doesn’t say how. Mahoney is a bit frustrated but chalks it up to another quirk of her very eccentric employer.

Magorium also gives Mahoney another surprise, the news that he’s hiring an accountant. And putting his own weird spin on things, he explains that the word “accountant” must come from the blending of “counter” and “mutant.” So when financial wiz Henry begins to work at the Emporium, most everyone calls him “the mutant.”

And then things get even stranger. As Mr. Magorium begins to talk about leaving the business and bequeathing it to Mahoney, a very strange substance, rather like creeping mold, begins forming in a corner of the store. The store looses not just its luster, but its joie de vivre, its…wonder. Soon thereafter, the shop actually throws a tantrum.