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From:Freddie Highmore , Paramount ,
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User Rating: Amazon Sales Rank:#1528 |
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2 of 2 customers found the following review helpful:
 What an Adventure!, 2008-02-20
This movie was supberbly acted and the children delightful. The monster was a bit scary for someone not familiar with the story. To be able to go back in time and stay the same was not new but, in this case, totally delighful.
1 of 1 customers found the following review helpful:
Fantastic Family Flick, 2008-02-19
After their parents separate, Jared Grace, his brother Simon, and their sister Mallory move into a house owned by their great-aunt Lucinda. Jared in particular misses his father and has acted out on occasion so when he reports hearing strange noises in the house no one believes him, even when he finds a book "Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You". Only when Simon is kidnapped by seemingly invisible creatures and is rescued by Jared do he and Mallory start to believe Jared. The children soon find out that an evil creature, Mulgarath, wants the Field Guide and will do anything to get his hands on it. The children must find a way to stop Mulgarath from getting a hold of the Field Guide, but they'll need some magical help to do so.
"The Spiderwick Chronicles" is an action packed family movie. Of the three children, Jared stands out, since in a lot of ways this is his story as he begins to realize the truth behind his parents separation and that his father isn't what he thought he was. The magical elements start very early on and are pretty much non-stop after that. The two creatures that help the children, brownie Thimbletack and hobgoblin Hogsqueal are nicely done, with some nice touches of humor, even if Thimbletack forgets to rhyme at times. The bad creatures, goblins and the shape-shifting Mulgarath are scary indeed. The movie is beautifully filmed and the special effects are very nicely done. There are some great action sequences including a chase through a tunnel, a ride on a griffin, and a huge battle near the end. The actors all do well, especially Freddie Highmore in the dual role of Jared/Simon. He does a great job of differentiating between the two characters.
Although "The Spiderwick Chronicles" is rated "PG", I wouldn't advise taking very young children to see it. There are some scenes that may truly scare them and there is a scene involving the children's father that may traumatize them. Also, the film is a bit loud at times, which may bother young children.
Purists may not like some of the liberties the film takes with the books in The Spiderwick Chronicles series, but they work. In fact, I thought a change they made to Lucinda's story was better than what happened in the book. The movie is enjoyable whether or not you've read the books. Well done.
3 of 5 customers found the following review helpful:
 Not quite what it could have been, 2008-02-19
The Spiderwick Chronicles, directed by Mark Waters, and based on the children's books by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi, begins as an emotional family drama but quickly deteriorates into a cliché-ridden attempt at riding the ever-thriving, sci-fi fantasy coat tails of the Harry Potter films. Except, the producers of the Harry Potter films understand that today's children are the smartest children in history and are not likely to fall for poorly crafted, dumbed-down storytelling even if it did open on an IMAX screen.
The film begins when Helen Grace (Mary Louise Parker), newly separated from her cheating, no-good creep of a husband (Andrew McCarthy), moves herself and her three children from New York City to her Aunt Lucinda's spooky Victorian mansion in upstate New York. Aunt Lucinda Spiderwick (Joan Plowright) lives in a sanitarium and has left the house to her niece, Helen (though Lucinda is an only child and therefore can't be anyone's aunt, technically speaking). The children, twins Jared and Simon Grace (played by Freddie Highmore in a dual role) and daughter Mallory Grace (Sarah Bolger) all deal with the separation of their parents in their own special ways. Jared is giving mom the silent treatment except when he's not and spouting clichés like "Dad left `cause you didn't listen to him." Mallory has focused her attention on fencing and defending her mother's honor. Simon, the geek-child does not "conflict" and therefore exists in a world of passive avoidance. That is, until invisible goblins catch him and he becomes a new and improved Simon filled with lots of conflict and purpose.
Within minutes - no, make that seconds - of moving in, Jared becomes spooked by a creature that, incredibly, appears to live in the walls of the Spiderwick mansion. By dinnertime, weird things happen and stuff disappears. In full cliché form, Jared, the angry, silent kid gets the blame. When he crawls into the dumbwaiter to get away from it all, he hoists himself into a secret attic where he finds two fascinating things: a honey-guzzling gremlin named Thimbletack (voiced by Martin Short) and a book entitled Field Guide to the Fantastical World All Around Us by Arthur Spiderwick, the family's great uncle (performed by the talented David Strathairn). Thimbletack's main function is to guard the Field Guide above all else and although he warns Jared (several times) not to open the sealed book, Jared goes ahead and does so anyway (of course). Through flashbacks, we learn that Great Uncle Arthur has discovered the secrets of the invisible world in the woods surrounding the Spiderwick mansion. Arthur has documented years of research and secret findings in his Field Guide complete with extensive illustrations and instructions for keeping the goblin universe in line. Because the secrets in this book could unleash death and destruction across faerie, gremlin, and humankind, after sealing the Field Guide and hiding it in a trunk in the attic, Arthur Spiderwick is whisked away by snow faeries because he knows too much and must be protected. Which brings me to the one of the many holes in this story: if the Field Guide's contents are so dangerous, why did the snow faeries leave it behind where the evil goblins could very likely get their claws or paws or hooves on it?
The Spiderwick Chronicles is a fast-paced film - too fast, in fact. The viewer has no time to adjust to quick changing, illogical sequences while trying to come to terms with the sometimes underacted/overacted performances from some members of the cast, most notably, Mary Louise Parker's vacant interpretation of Helen. In one scene, a knife-wielding Helen stares blankly at her knives and unenthusiastically exclaims "It's a good thing we're New Yorkers." I didn't know whether to agree or be offended.
Throughout this film, the Field Guide is dragged around, hidden, pulled apart and soiled (to name a few things), but none of the characters ever actually reads it. They flip through it a few times and talk about it a lot but that's about it. Right before the movie degenerates into a chaotic frenzy with the family fighting to save themselves from the evil ogre Mulgrath (performed to frightening excess in part by Nick Nolte and partially through some creative animation techniques), an all-out battle of exploding tomato sauce and oatmeal bombs ensues. While all this was happening, a little boy in the row in front of me asked his dad, "Why don't they read the instructions in the book?" Exactly.
Overall, there's some good animation, a few magnificent aerial sequences, some very pretty flower faeries, a cast of greats and just the right bit of green slime, but this film falls short in the most important areas: storytelling and performance. And I would warn parents to think twice before allowing children under the age of 7 or 8 to see this because of dark themes and very scary animation.
2 of 2 customers found the following review helpful:
Solid, unpretentious fantasy for the whole family, 2008-02-18
I doubt that THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES will enjoy that same longevity that the film adaptations of HARRY POTTER (and possibly even the current CHRONICLES OF NARNIA) will. However, it is nonetheless a more solid adaptation of its source material than the tonally misguided SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, more down-to-earth than the lovely but boring GOLDEN COMPASS and FAR superior to the horrific ERAGON.
The SPIDERWICK books are slight volumes indeed, and the movie easily adapts all five of them into one film less than 2 hours long. Unless the film is a hit and its makers decide to "invent" their own sequels, this CHRONICLE will stand alone. And that's probably okay. It's nice to see a "family epic" that doesn't have a transparent agenda to be the first in a series of smash hits.
It's a relatively humble story, told with simplicity. It begins with that most tiresome of all family movie clichés...the newly single mother moving into a decrepit old house in the middle of nowhere with her unhappy city kids. The children hate the new little town they have to live in, the creeky and creepy old house and to some extent, their overstressed mother. Isn't there any other way to get a family into a "haunted" or "mysterious" house anymore?!?!
Fortunately, this worn-out idea is quickly thrust aside, as one of the kids (played by young Freddie Highmore of FINDING NEVERLAND) discovers a hidden room that holds the secret workshop and writings of Arthur Spiderwick, a long gone relative who is reputed to have been more than a little nuts about pursuing his life's work of documenting the magical "other world" of fairies, goblins, etc. that exists right along side ours...only invisibly.
As you might guess, it turns out this world exists. At first, no one believes young Highmore, especially his twin brother (also played by Highmore) and his older sister. But they soon embark on adventures that prove the existence of this magical world, and unwittingly they have also enabled that world to threaten their very lives.
The movie is partly an exploration of the magical world, as we learn some of its rules and meet its inhabitants. Most enjoyable is Thimbletack, a little creature charged with guarding the book that contains all these secrets. He's got a love of honey, which is good, because feeding him a honey-smeared cracker calms his tendency to turn into a little, green, angry ogre. All the creatures are CGI rendered and the effects, while not earth-shattering, are convincing enough to allow for proper suspension of disbelief.
The others parts of the movie are a detective story (as the kids try to put together the truth) and some light action sequences, because in the end, the goblins must be battled. There is also a subplot featuring David Straithairn (as Arthur Spiderwick) and Joan Plowright that I won't go into any detail on, because it is the source of the lovely and satisfying ending.
The movie is perfectly entertaining, but hardly flawless. After awhile, you realize that virtually the entire thing is taking place at the one house, with brief forays to a magical glade and to the town. It feels a little "stagebound" for lack of a better word. In some ways, this keeps the story small and more grounded in our world. But it also prevents any sense of truly sweeping vistas (despite one scene of the kids flying on the back of a Griffin). This makes the film seem just a little low-budget...just when we have grown to expect more from these sorts of films. (On the other hand, at least it doesn't exceed its grasp.) Also, Freddie Highmore, a very talented young actor, is just not quite up to a convincing American accent, and this bothered me just a little throughout the film.
But on the other hand, watching the first moment when flowers in a flower bed turn into fairies is a true high-point...a moment of brief loveliness that sneaks up on you. In fact, SPIDERWICK is a film of small pleasures throughout. Little details, tiny touches...these are what you'll remember...long after the splattering of goblins and trolls.
---see more of my reviews on [..]
7 of 8 customers found the following review helpful:
Condensed, but creative eye-candy, 2008-02-18
Condensing 5 books into one film can hurt storylines and make for lots of undeveloped characters. But the archetypes in Spiderwick are so familiar (like the abbreviated Potter movies) that it is less of a disadvantage than you would think. We, as objective movie viewers have to let go of the expectation for the Holy Grail of the perfect book-to-film translation and face that the mediums are apples and oranges. This is an easy task for me this time because I haven't read any of the Spiderwick series. But having said that, my children and I, enjoy the film. The look of the "world" created in the spirit of the books were originally stylized enough to make it a departure from the world of Hogwarts (which is no small accomplishment when you also have trolls and griffins.
Typical of the archetypes of the genre, you have the child-outsider of a broken (or bent) home who blunders into a magic world, along with quirky, sometimes ill-mannered, but ultimately well-meaning siblings and finally the single parent who doesn't believe a word-of it. The kid opens a book he shouldn't (like who would read a book that has "Do not open" on the cover, it should have read: don't open infested with Lice!" that would have kept `em out!) and then spends the film trying to make things right and bonding with his estranged family.
Production is pretty eye-candy using visual designers of the Henson school of creature making. John Horner (the not-Williams) composes a face paced soundtrack that matches the speed of the story and slows appropriately of the sappier moments of the movie. The cast is a watchable bunch of not-overly attractive kids, along with some voice cameos like Martin Short and Nick Nolte, not without distinction, plays the badie (physically sometimes) well enough.
We enjoyed the film and, if there isn't higher praise than this let me know, we were inspired to check-out the Spiderwick Chronicles book series at our local library to fill in all the plot holes.
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