1st watched 6/4/2009 – 4 out of 10 (Dir – Mark Waters): Scary supposed children's fantasy film was really pretty much a horror flick with fantasy characters thrown in. A real disappointment, in my opinion, because they focused on the kids in terror aspect instead of allowing us to understand the fantasy world a little bit better instead of jolting us for 90 minutes. The basic storyline revolves around a troubled family that movie into an old house and find a book that is(guess what
) not supposed to be opened!! And, of course, one of the Freddie Highmore characters( he plays a dual role of American speaking twins) opens it and all hell breaks loose in the fantasy world. The book was written by a man named Spiderwick 80 years earlier and tells of the unseen world and all of it's secrets. An evil character wants the book and a protective character, voiced by Martin Short, tries to explain the scenario to the child. The rest of the movie, the kids are pursued by the evil forces and their goal is to not be killed by it and kill it, of course. Sounds like a horror movie, doesn't it?? Anyway, the last 15 minutes are good but getting there is not fun. This movie was based on a series of books but I find it hard to believe that the series boiled down to this action piece. In my opinion, this was Hollywood's attempt to make it marketable and it doesn't work. Too bad, because I'm sure this movie disappointed many adults and the kids they brought in to see it.
Review of The Spiderwick Chronicles
