The Spiderwick Chronicles review

I'll just say it right now- The Spiderwick Chronicles is the most magical movie I've seen since Pan's Labyrinth. The film follows young Jared Grace(Freddie Highmore) and his family as they move from New York to a large, mysterious house that belonged to his great-granduncle, Arthur Spiderwick. Jared uncovers a book that contains many secrest abouth the natural world that cannot be readily seen by the human eye- Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You.

This movie has a fantastic story and tells it well. That is so important in film. You MUST tell a story that people can relate to, that entertains, and that has a message. This film has all three. It develops the story wonderfully, as well.

The acting is pretty good from child actor Freddy Highmore(Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, August Rush). He actually plays two characters since Jared has a twin brother. The casting is great. Nick Nolte plays the evil, hideous Ogre Mulgarath, and David Strathairn plays the kind old Arthur Spiderwick himself. They even get Seth Rogen to play a crude, fat hobgoblin and martin Short to play the timid keeper of the book.

The creature design and visual effects are done by none other than Industrial Light and Magic, the masters of special effects. The film is beautiful and the creatures grotesque at times but beautiful at others.

Everything meshes together here- the cast, the story, the effects, the music, the cinematography...all of it!

Beware, though. It's a dark and mature story for a PG rated movie. It deals with divorce very plainly and realistically. It has a couple violent attack scenes and some genuine frighteneing moments. I'd recommend any parents reading to only take kids age grade school and above- don't take anybody under 6 or so. It will go way over their head and give them nightmares.

Also, don't go expecting a huge scale movie. It's much more subdued. Sure, the world may be on the line, but we don't get any huge battles like in Narnia. In fact, it's much more a children's version of Pan's Labyrinth than it is your standard fantasy fare.

All in all, the film touched me and made me feel like a kid again. The only negatives are that the film is short(97 minutes), and that the acting from some of the other supporting characters isn't exactly Oscar material. But it accomplishes extremely well what it set out to do- make a stellar action/fantasy film. For that it gets an

89/100