Ostensibly a film for adolescents, Holes is a film with too much plot and, at two hours long, not enough time to tell it in. Despite that, it is refreshingly original and offers some satisfying performances from both younger and older members of the cast.

Stanley Yelnats (Shia LaBeouf) is wrongly convicted of stealing a pair of trainers and sentenced to eighteen months at Camp Green Lake, a boy's detention centre deep in the desert where he and the other inmates spend each day digging 5ft deep by 5ft wide holes beneath the scorching sun. The camp's warden (Sigourney Weaver) aided by her henchmen Mr. Sir (Jon Voight) and Dr. Pendanski (Tim Blake Nelson) claim such treatment is character building but, of course, have an ulterior motive.

Saddled with a sometimes intrusive and usually inappropriate soundtrack, Holes looks like a music video at times and, because of the wealth of information it has to fit into its running time, contains a convoluted structure featuring repeated flashbacks and, sometimes, even flashbacks within flashbacks. All this suggests a requirement for the viewer to be familiar with screenwriter Louis Sachar's novel on which it is based, but this isn't necessarily the case. The film's story can be followed by anyone who hasn't read the book, but there's a depth of characterisation that is sorely missing from the film that anyone who knows the novel would presumably be able to draw on to fill in the gaps.

Most of the real personalities belong to the adult characters. The triumvirate of Weaver, Voight and Nelson stray dangerously close to parody at times but manage somehow to avoid the obvious pitfalls and entertain while giving us reasonably hissable villains. Our young heroes, Stanley and Zero (Khleo Thomas), work well together and writer Sachar builds a largely adversarial relationship between the inmates that would be as recognisable on the school playground as it is in a detention camp.

Perhaps the story's main failing is the impression it gives of just being too clever. Every story has to tie up its loose ends, but the more strands the story has – and this one has many – the more contrived the ending appears when they are finally all neatly pulled together. But at least it's different from much of the media offered to teenagers today in that it offers a thoughtful and intelligent story, and it is obvious that both Sachar and director Andrew Davis have put a lot of care and attention to detail into the telling of this tale.

Holes, the novel, was forced on me in an education course. I didn't think I would like a children's novel; plus, the other couple of books I was forced to read for the class were really bad. But, to my surprise, I absolutely loved Holes. It really is one of the most perfectly written novels I've ever read. I think it has the rare quality that makes it appeal to pre-teens, teenagers, and adults. Everyone who reads it, I think, will walk away a better person. While I can't quite say that for the film, I am happy to say that they got it mostly right. I don't think viewers of the film will walk away as enriched, but they will certainly be entertained, without the side effect of being stupider when they sat down. It is an intelligent story, and it's very well told. I think it moves a tad too quickly. The novel takes more time in developing the characters. And the flashbacks come in and out so quickly that they don't have too much time to register. The interracial romance in the past feels more cliché and trite than it does in the novel. And the ending, which ties together all the loose threads, seems very ridiculous. It's exactly the same in the novel, but there's a sense of the absurd that doesn't quite exist in the film. It works a lot better. I also don't like the multitude of pop songs. I wish Disney didn't feel it such a necessity to sell soundtracks. The cast is across-the-board excellent, from the young kids to the old pros. Jon Voight is especially great. Not quite sure why we need Catwoman and the Fonze, though. 9/10.

More than just a "kids' movie", "Holes" looks at how past incidents still affect us today, whether we know about them or not. When teenager Stanley Yelnats III (Shia LeBoeuf) gets sent to a prison camp where he is forced to dig all day long, he discovers a number of things about the camp, and his personal connection to it. Through flashbacks, we learn that a number of things are closer than we realize (you'll understand this better when you see the movie). LeBoeuf does a pretty good job, as do the other cast members: Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Tim Blake Nelson, Henry Winkler, Patricia Arquette, and Eartha Kitt. A very interesting movie.