Cast: Freddie Highmore, Mary Louise-Parker, David Strathairn

Director: Mark Waters

Screenplay: Karey Kirkpatrick

Genre: Fantasy/Family

Running time: 1 hr 37 mins



CRITIQUE:


It’s hard to invest in a contemporary fantasy film without any expectation. Every fantasy flick seem to out-streak each other through visceral battles that the more impressive the CGI, the bigger the effects, the greater the budget, the bigger chance to break box office. A recent entry to the arena is THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES, an amalgamation of a series of books into one (thank heavens that’s a series less), and it is not ambitious enough to stage any epic battle but stays rooted to basic elements of family foibles. Yet, with its good intentions, it still feels like a derivative of other family, fantasy films despite of its great deal of efforts, as though a blend of JUMANJI and E.T. had been put together, tinged with NARNIA familiarities.


The presence of the fantastical creatures like hobgoblins, faeries, trolls, and griffins could make a seven-year-old wide-eyed and gushing, and this is fundamentally the film’s intent. It’s a kid’s fare film, hence its Nickelodeon home studio. It kicks off with a premise unpromising enough that exploits the talent of David Strathairn as the ever-curious Arthur Spiderwick that only requires him to furrow his brows and literally looking like he’s away with the faeries. Rest assured, the film is saved by Freddie Highmore, this talented young British thesp playing American twins, one a grumpy-schoolboy-turned-hero and another less complex, laid-back pacifist. This is a convincing turn and each character has an imprint.


The movie’s main problem is that it’s all too familiar. At its crux is a story of a family struggling to face the bitter facts of divorce, albeit with pedestrian elements comprising of a renegade son who tries to convince an insensitive sis and a disbelieving mum that he sees magical creatures. Speaking of creatures, think SHREK turned three-dimensional, that’s what you get here as the goblins look cartoonish. It’s never beyond impressive, save for the griffin as perhaps the most realised creature in the film, although it goes HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF THE AZKABAN on us.


VERDICT:

This fantasy-family flick has moral values to teach but it remains like a Saturday fantasy matinee fare, plainly watchable and passable at the same time.



RATING: B-