The magician? No, the plant. Which is nominally more interesting, I suppose.

Everything everyone says in this movie makes sense or is funny on purpose. The main guy is tough without being laughably tough. The bad guy is bad without being irrational or ridiculous. The story is interesting and has some good twists. Everyone's decisions are completely logical, based on the information they have available to them. The cartoon effects actually look pretty good. There's some decent gore, including one bit I've never seen before. The brunette chick who's in charge of the base camp and ends up squashed inside a giant tree (spoiler warning) is inexcusably fine. Even the fucking cell phones work. I'm not saying I want to marry this movie or anything (hell, I probably wouldn't even let it finish first), but it's nice to see someone over at the Syphilis Channel actually putting in a minimal amount of effort once in a while. Enjoy those Chili's gift certificates, makers of Mandrake. You earned 'em.

(You know, I've noticed that a disproportionate number of Sci-Fi/Syfy Channel movies that start with the letter M are actually halfway decent: there's this one, Mansquito, Mammoth, Manticore... What's with that?)