The Spiderwick Chronicles

The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008), starring Freddie Highmore, Sarah Bolger, Mary-Louise Parker, Nick Nolte, and David Strathairn.

Having heard nothing but good things about the series of books but not having read any of them, I was looking forward to seeing this movie. With a rich mythology from the books, the depth of characters and plot was clear to see.

Highmore plays Jared and Simon Grace, and Jared finds a field guide of mystical and magical creatures written by Arthur Spiderwick (Strathairn), his Great Great Uncle. Opening the book leads to an Ogre called Mulgarath (voiced by Nick Nolte) planning a full scale attack on the house to get hold of the book and destroy the human kind.

Although clichéd, the film has a great child-friendly feeling to it. Freddie Highmore plays two characters with two different and realistic personalities. Sarah Bolger plays sister to Highmores twins, and Mary Louise Parker the sceptical mother. All of the characters are realistically played and fantastically acted.

When doing the research for this review I found that the director of this, Mark Waters, has directed both Mean Girls and Freaky Friday, two films that hit the adult and the child sense of humour fantastically well. Here with Spiderwick, he does not disappoint, great SFX great plot and a fantastic cast that has created what would be the start of a good series of films. However it is a shame to discover, through research for this review, that they crammed all 5 books into one movie, similar in some ways to what they did with Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. However even though they distilled 5 books worth of material into a 107 minute movie, it still is a thoroughly enjoyable film. The acting is good and the special effects and great too!

So all in all i would recommend this movie, it is a lazy Saturday or Sunday afternoon movie, one where you don't have to think much.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆