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Here's a public service to any lazy schoolkids who might decide to see The Spiderwick Chronicles and write a report as if they'd read the books.
While this might have worked with Narnia or Lord Of the Rings, be warned that, in the interest of short-attention spans, the studio has taken the hugely popular five-book Spiderwick series, scrapped Book Four entirely, and squeezed the other four books into 90 minutes of plot. It's still a story about a boy who discovers a book that reveals a world of supernatural creatures in his backyard -- but there's much missing.
Not that that matters in the thrill-ride millieu of the multiplex. If you're looking for a "hit" in the adrenal sense, there's no arguing with the results of this condensed version of The Spiderwick Chronicles. The effects, the pacing, the mood and the stunningly professional job the ubiquitous child actor Freddie Highmore does playing utterly different twins are enough to make you forget about what's not there.
A movie that's probably too frightening for most pre-schoolers, The Spiderwick Chronicles sets up its premise almost impatiently. Short-tempered mom Helen Grace (Mary-Louise Parker) is at the wheel of an SUV loaded with squabbling kids, twins Jared and Simon (Highmore) and teenage sister Mallory (Sarah Bolger), heading toward a decrepit old manse that Helen has inherited from a distant relative. The move turns out to be divorce-driven, which explains the general bad mood (particularly regarding Jared, who we're told has "anger issues").
So it is that Jared is simply accused of "acting out" when he hears noises in the walls and gets responses to his exploratory knocks.
Eventually, he knocks a hole in a kitchen wall in a fit of pique, revealing an ancient dumbwaiter that leads to a long-lost attic, the hiding place of a forbidden book called Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You. The discovery infuriates a tiny creature named Thimbletack (voiced by Martin Short) who'd been entrusted with the safety of the book for decades since the disappearance of its author (David Strathairn).
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Turns out the existence of the book had been hidden from the local evil entity, a powerful ogre named Mulgrath (voiced by Nick Nolte and played by him in his human incarnation, looking very much like Nolte's own real-life mug shot).
But with Jared waving the field guide around, all bets are off. Seems Mulgrath could use the book's spells to destroy fairy and human worlds alike. Which makes The Spiderwick Chronicles one long declaration of war, with the Grace family and their allies -- Thimbletack and a weird bird-eating pig-like creature named Hogsqueal (Seth Rogen) -- awaiting the siege with only a few spells to keep an army of Mulgrath's goblins at bay.
Indeed, the ongoing siege is so central to the movie, that the two main departures from this single location seem tacked on -- a mad dash to town (with a troll on their heels) to find Arthur Spiderwick's aged daughter (Joan Plowright) and a flight aboard the back of a Griffin to a parallel "sylph" world in search of Arthur Spiderwick.
After all the sturm and drang, it all ends a little neatly (as a kids' movie must), and it's only then you may start feeling cheated of a backstory. The upside is this is the kind of cheat that just might inspire your child to pick up the books at home and read them.
(This film is rated PG)