‘Indian’: A Cupboard Full of Magic : Movie review: The children’s tale of a toy coming to life is told in a captivating, gentle, low-key manner.

“The Black Stallion,” “E.T.” and now “The Indian in the Cupboard.” When it comes to writing films that both involve and captivate children, Melissa Mathison is the one you want to call.

Mathison’s forte is not necessarily coming up with original ideas: “Indian,” like “Stallion” (which she co-scripted), is based on a modern classic of children’s literature, first published in 1980. Written by Lynne Reid Banks (who also wrote “The L-Shaped Room” for adults), this story of a magic cupboard that brings toy plastic figures to life has more than 5 million copies in print and many more of its three sequels.

Mathison’s gift is rather her understanding of the sense of wonder and her ability to infuse it, as well as an honesty of spirit, into the material she works on. And not many screenwriters can match her in putting emotion on screen in a way that is effective without being excessive.

Although audience members, from presidential candidates on down, don’t seem to care or even notice, this has been a superb year for children’s films. Starting with John Sayles’ “The Secret of Roan Inish” and extending through “A Little Princess” and this, several different approaches to material for young people have been tried with equal success.

Although its story makes it the most dependent on special effects, “The Indian in the Cupboard” is also the most self-effacing of films, a gentle and low-key effort directed in a determinedly non-flashy manner by Frank Oz, best known for his longtime association with the Muppets.

That unobtrusiveness extends to Mathison’s script, which has an effortless quality yet is able to seamlessly effect a major change from the original novel, set in Britain and featuring boys who have tea after school and say such things as “Now look here” and “How dare you.”

Although his name has remained the same, 9-year-old Omri has been transferred to Manhattan and his part taken by a young American actor, Hal Scardino, who debuted as a defeated opponent in “Searching for Bobby Fischer.”

With tousled hair and large eyes, Scardino is one of the few child actors who actually seems like a real kid, not a wily show-biz veteran, and his skill as a reactor, his ability to sharply register everything from delight to pain on his face, is essential to this story of a boy who has an awful lot to react to.

Omri gets the wooden cupboard (it’s metal in the novel, more like a bathroom medicine cabinet) as a birthday present from one of his brothers. From his best friend Patrick (Rishi Bhat) he gets an ordinary-looking plastic Indian, one of those mass-produced figures to which even children rarely give a second thought.

Omri absently puts the figure in the cupboard, locks it up with a key his mother got from her grandmother and then forgets all about it. Until the next morning, when he hears something rattling the small door. He rushes to open it and is understandably astonished to discover that the plastic Indian has become a flesh-and-blood little man, all of 3 inches tall and furious at finding himself in the land of the giants. “You are so real,” Omri marvels. “I am, are you?” the warrior answers back.

The man’s name, Omri learns, is Little Bear (played by Litefoot, a Cherokee Nation recording artist in his acting debut). An Iroquois who has been somehow removed from his real life in 1761 (the film, like the book, gracefully chooses not to explain how), Little Bear can speak English because his tribe is allied with the colonizing British.

Beside himself with pleasure and amazement, Omri tries to help Little Bear adjust to his new world, supplying him with material to build a lodge house and protecting him from the perils of modern life.

All this would be difficult enough, but Omri lets Patrick in on the secret, and, against his better judgment, a plastic cowboy goes into the cupboard and out comes Boohoo Boone (engagingly played by David Keith), a lachrymose 19th-Century cowboy who sounds like Gabby Hayes and is less than pleased to discover a miniature Native American in his neck of the woods.

Dangers of varying degrees confront Omri in his role of sorcerer’s apprentice, but it is consistent with “The Indian in the Cupboard’s” simplicity and fidelity to the original that they are modest ones and suitable to the scale of a child’s imagination.

Although it is not flashy, “Indian” is indebted to the effects work of Industrial Light & Magic. Using a combination of blue-screen technology and enormous, specially constructed props, including a sneaker 14 feet high and 35 feet wide, ILM and cinematographer Russell Carpenter make this bit of magic completely convincing.

From Omri’s realization that having Little Bear dependent on him is “an enormous, huge responsibility” to the film’s thoughts on trust and the importance of getting along with those who are different, “Indian” is intent on teaching lessons, but it does so easily, with a welcome lack of pretension. Like many of the classic works for children, it is finally about the rough passage to adulthood, and Hal Scardino’s ability to convey that change is another reason why even in a year of wonders for children this quiet film still manages to impress.

* MPAA rating: PG, for mild language and brief video images of violence and sexy dancing. Times guidelines: The video is from Motley Crue.

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‘The Indian in the Cupboard’

Hal Scardino: Omri

Litefoot: Little Bear

Lindsay Crouse: Jane

Richard Jenkins: Victor

Rishi Bhat: Patrick

David Keith: Boone

A Kennedy/Marshall production in association with Scholastic Productions, released by Paramount Pictures. Director Frank Oz. Producers Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Jane Startz. Executive producers Robert Harris, Marty Keltz, Bernie Williams. Screenplay Melissa Mathison, based on the novel by Lynn Reid Banks. Cinematographer Russell Carpenter. Editor Ian Crafford. Costumes Deborah L. Scott. Music Randy Edelman. Production design Leslie McDonald. Art director Tony Fanning. Set decorator Chris L. Spellman. Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes.

* Playing in general release throughout Southern California.