A family finds that there’s an unseen world around the old house where they are living - a world full of creatures both good and bad.
The former resident compiled a book of all of the strengths and weaknesses of the creatures and one of the evil ones will stop at nothing to get his hands on the book so that he too can know the weaknesses of his fellows.
Helen Grace (Mary-Louise Parker) has been recently divorced and has moved to an distant, elderly relative Lucinda Spiderwick’s (Joan Plowright) isolated, eerie house as she is in a local nursing home. Her daughter Mallory (Sarah Bolger) and twin sons Jared and Simon (both Freddie Highmore) are not exactly thrilled with their new home, especially Jared who didn’t want to leave his father.
It doesn’t take long before strange things are happening in the house and the kids find a dumbwaiter that has been plastered over in the kitchen. Jared takes the dumbwaiter up into the attic and finds the secret study of Arthur Spiderwick (David Strathairn), Lucinda’s father. Jared had found a monogrammed key in some of the items that were in the dumbwaiter and opens a chest in the attic with it and finds the field guide of Arthur Spiderwick to the faeries and creatures that live in a secret world around the estate.
It seems that eighty years before Arthur had discovered that there was an invisible world of creatures and he went about cataloging the species. One of those creatures is a brownie named Thimbletack (Martin Short), who serves the Spiderwick household and protects the book, and a hobgoblin named Hogsqueal (Seth Rogen).
The ogre Mulgarath (Nick Nolte) is after the book so that he can know the secrets of his fellow creatures so that he can rule over the magical world and now that he knows the Graces have the book he’ll stop at nothing to get the book.
The Spiderwick Chronicles is based on the popular book series of the same name. It’s quite the whimsical bit of family fun. I’m only familiar with the first book since that was as far as I got in my reading - too many DVDs you know. It basically was setup for what came in the next volumes.
Even if I’m not familiar with what follows it still feels like some compression of events has taken place to fit the series into one film (so far I suppose). Any movie of this sort rises or falls on the performance of its young stars and in this instance we get double for our money.
Freddie Highmore adopts an American accent for his dual role and even gives each twin some different characteristics so that we can tell them apart. The other part of the triumvirate is taken by Sarah Bolger who also is great in her role as the put upon sister that finds herself fencing trolls and goblins instead of humans.
We add some familiar familial stresses as the Grace children’s home is broken by the divorce of their parents. The adults also perform well. Mary-Louise Parker plays the part of the stressed out divorcee with some fine acting. Joan Plowright also is excellent in her small role (they even found a child actress that looks exactly like her) and Strathairn is properly mysterious as Spiderwick.
The vocal work is also great with special recognition going to the gravely Nolte as the villain. Spiderwick manages to charm its way where other fantasy films fail to do so.
The Spiderwick Chronicles is presented in 1080p anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features are presented in high-definition, save for one section (more on that in a minute). We start off with the 7-minute “It’s All True” in which director Mark Waters tells us that the film is a true story. The 8-minute “It’s a Spiderwick World” continues the ruse with the authors of the books, Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi, touring the set and saying that it looks like the real house.
Next are the pages from Arthur’s field guide about some of the magical creatures. There’s also a Blu-ray enhanced version of the guide that pops up creature trivia during the film and also links back to the pages at certain points. The 14-minute “Spiderwick! Meet the Clan!” goes into the cast of the film.
The 20-minute “Making Spiderwick” goes into the design of bringing the books to the screen. The 14-minute “The Magic of Spiderwick” goes into the visual effects in the film. The 2 minute “Final Word of Advice” has Waters return to warn us to watch out for the creatures. There are also 8 minute of deleted scenes (presented in movie quality), 5 minutes of Nickelodeon TV spots (in standard definition), and 2 trailers (4 minutes total).
The Spiderwick Chronicles is a fun family film that also manages to offer suspense and chills in equal measure. Some fine acting only heightens the charm and you’ll want to visit the land of the invisible creatures around us again and again.
The Spiderwick Chronicles is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
Jeff SwindollJun 27th, 2008 - 11:55:54
The small advantage I'd give to the standard DVD 2 disc version is that the packaging is book-like and pretty cool. The Blu-ray since it doesnt have the cool slipcover is pretty bland.
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