2008-07-15

The Spiderwick Chronicles

Release Year: 2008
Starring: Freddie Highmore, Sarah Bolger, Mary-Louise Parker, Joan Plowright, Martin Short, David Strathairn, Nick Nolte
Directed by: Mark Waters
Written by: Karey Kirkpatrick, David Berenbaum, John Sayles
RT: 79% (122 reviews), IMDB: 7.0 (8,199 votes), Metacritic: 62 (30 reviews)

Based on a book by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi, this children movie starred Freddie Highmore who played double roles as Jared and Simon Grace (I actually didn't realize about this until I read it on Wikipedia. Silly me!). Just like other similar movies, this do not think this movie offered something new. Obviously, I haven't read the book yet, so I couldn't tell if this movie followed the book closely or if there were some loose parts. From what I know from Wikipedia, most of the contents from the fourth book were left out.


What made this movie rather different was that it added a slightly adult issue regarding the relationship between Jared's father and mother which was collapsing. Still, with all those movies like Harry Potter, Golden Compass, and Chronicles of Narnia, I regard this one as "just another children movie".

As for sequels, well, there are two more books on this series, so a sequel would be more likely to happen sometime in the next few years, especially that most of the receptions were positive.

Would I recommend this movie? Yeah, you bet. This one is rather unique. With some light humour and plenty of CGIs this would be able to entertain you. For a final score, I'd give it a 7.0.

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