<P> The film opened to mostly mixed to negative reviews from critics and lackluster box office results . It currently holds a 32% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 37 reviews . </P> <P> Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin both criticized the film for presenting fantasy as a way of escaping child abuse . Said Ebert, "I was so appalled, watching this kid hurtling down the hill in his pathetic contraption, that I didn't know which ending would be worse . If he fell to his death, that would be unthinkable, but if he soared up to the moon, it would be unforgivable--because you can't escape from child abuse in little red wagons, and even the people who made this picture should have been ashamed to suggest otherwise ." </P> <P> Because the film in fact ends with Bobby successfully evading his stepfather forever, viewers (including Ebert himself) have taken to speculating on the "true" ending, assuming that the one presented was a case of an unreliable narrator . </P> <P> The film is dedicated to the memory of script supervisor Nancy Benta Hansen and uncredited production assistant Simone Fuentes, "whose professionalism and humor we miss ." </P>

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