The Spiderwick Chronicles: Review By Fallenlords

To be honest I had never heard of The Spiderwick Chronicles, but what an original and interesting idea. A world hidden from view unless you know how to see it or it decides to be seen.

This film is really my cup of my tea, it is just a good concept from start to finish. Well acted, believable cgi, nice story, great bad guys, it has it all and does it in a nice believable manner. I would say this film can be enjoyed pretty much by any age group, although very young children might find a few of the monsters a bit scary.

My only criticism of this film, would be the parent subplot. It was not really very well constructed but it was required for the ending of the film and the final confrontation. So I must say I can forgive this somewhat minor annoyance in an otherwise superb film.

For a family film as well, this is quite fast paced. The next thrill is only a few heartbeats away, it doesn’t leave you waiting and waiting for the next interesting thing to happen. It just zoom’s along, as a film of this type should.

The child stars come across very well, they are likeable and not snotty little brats that you can’t stand. They all did a fine job. Freddie Highmore who played both parts as Jared and Simon Grace, did have me believing he had a twin. I only noticed he played both parts once I checked the IMDB database. So well done him, he had me fooled.

Sarah Bolger who played Mallory Grace also came across as a believable character. All too often in films the girls have a hard time of it, and they are really there to just shatter your ear drums with screams while the boys sort things out. Not so in this case, she gives as good as she gets and being a fencing champion is more than a handful for the goblins.

Mary-Louise Parker, who I really liked in the West Wing, is the Mum and again plays a nice part. Nick Nolte is the ogre Mulgarath, although in his human form you don’t see that much of him.

My favourite character was Hogsqueal, a hobgoblin, he just made me laugh all the way through ‘Ohhh a bird …..’

One of the criticisms I have heard about this film is it tries to pack in the contents of five books into one film. Now personally having never read the books I don’t know if this is the case or not. All I can say, is not having read the books I thought this was an excellent film. Totally enjoyable from start to finish.