The Spiderwick Chronicles: Critic Reviews

Spiderwick is set in the present, but goes for an overall design look of dainty, cozy, William Morris-y arts-and-craftiness.

Sloppy, secondhand pander.

A run-of-the-mill fantasy adventure.

The movie, based on the best-selling series by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, tells parallel tales of fathers who abandon their children, but it glosses over the trauma of those sagas in favor of special-effects-laden escapism.

For the uninitiated? Man, it's a bummer.

In its way, The Spiderwick Chronicles is a ripsnorting, computerized update of E. Nesbit's old fantasy novels for children.

Happily, Highmore has no trouble grasping the task at hand. As both the thoughtful Simon and the brash Jared, he transports himself into this literal faerie tale with such convincing enthusiasm, he turns us into believers, too.

It has plentiful whimsy, a big enough heart and Joan Plowright in one fine scene, burbling magnificently. It treats its archetypes with all due seriousness: Good must engage evil in a final stand. And fatherless children must try to save the world.

Part of what keeps this from being just another children's fantasy is director Mark Waters' sensitivity to the way the enchanted elements deepen the emotional journey.

It's got thrills but is not allegorically deep or daunting like the Harry Potter or Narnia flicks. It skews young.

There's nothing wrong with it that passion and personality couldn't fix.

A well-crafted family thriller that is truly scary and doesn't wimp out.

It isn't quite the world of the books. But it's a perfectly magical and exciting one in its own right.

Meticulously rendered CGI creatures spike this dark adventure, shot marvelously by Caleb Deschanel.

The director does a nice job of juggling and blending the movie's tricky tones and storylines, which could have gone badly wrong at any juncture.

The story generates surprising emotional power.

The Spiderwick Chronicles, while not without its virtues (including a genuinely sweet ending), goes too far on the frightening front, especially for a young audience.

For a story aimed at the moppet market, The Spiderwick Chronicles is one that holds the interest without unbalancing the I.Q.

A work of both modest enchantment and enchanting modesty, grounded in a classically Spielbergian realm where childlike wonderment crosses paths with the tough realities of young adulthood.

The characters lack shadings -- Nolte's ogre is loud but uninteresting -- and the tone of the fantasy world isn't witty, like Harry Potter's, or satirical, like Lemony Snicket's. It's all just silly.

A top-drawer cast, sympathetic script, a director known for delicious teen edge and one of the great cinematographers of our time have conjured up a topical, whimsical and occasionally magical action-romp through a world we know, but don't fully see.

The Spiderwick Chronicles exemplifies a problem with many of today's fantasy-adventure movies: the sense that narrative values, such as the artful building of suspense, can be slighted because the computer-generated special effects are so good.

Passably entertaining if derivative.

There's enough here to keep adults engaged, which is an important component of any motion picture that wants to be known as 'family entertainment.' I would place The Spiderwick Chronicles comfortably in that category.

An enjoyable adventure fantasy that pushes all the requisite buttons while still managing to throw in a pleasant surprise or two, Paramount's big-budget gamble has impressive talent to burn on both sides of the camera.