Best of all, Waters and his team remember to make the movie about human beings; like E.T., this is a story about dealing with absent fathers that happens to be filled with adventure and outlandish critters.
Comment
02/15/08
The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)
79
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:138
Fresh:109
Rotten:29
Average Rating:6.7/10
Consensus: The Spiderwick Chronicles is an entertaining children's adventure, with heart and imagination to spare.
Theatrical Release:21-03-2008
Synopsis: Based on the bestselling series of children's fantasy novels of the same name by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi, THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES follows the adventures of the Grace family, newly... [More]
Starring: Freddie Highmore, Mary-Louise Parker, Nick Nolte, Joan Plowright
Director: Mark Waters
Reviews for The Spiderwick Chronicles
A refreshingly spry, modest adventure.
02/15/08
The best fantasy movie to come along in a while. Spiderwick is miles better than the yawn-inducing adaptation of "The Golden Compass." It's smart, thrilling and funny, and it even features a good message about the importance of family.
02/15/08
Meticulously rendered CGI creatures spike this dark adventure, shot marvelously by Caleb Deschanel.
02/15/08
Director Mark Waters does a fine job meshing the fantastical with the quotidian.
02/15/08
It's fast-paced and funny, strangely warm and suddenly creepy, disarmingly charming and admirably icky, all at the same time.
02/15/08
The Spiderwick Chronicles hands us a new fantastical adventure to capture our imagination--and make us grab the edge of our seats. It’s definitely not for the youngest faint of heart.
02/15/08
Spiderwick hits the high notes when it needs to, and kids who can handle the scarier parts will find it an enjoyable escape.
02/14/08
SPIDERWICK's great charm is that it feels exactly like the kind of adventure story you might have imagined at the bottom of the garden one day during childhood.
02/14/08
Instead of absorbing us into this magical landscape, this adaptation crams all five books together into a frenetic and frustrating 24-hour-escapade
02/14/08
A well-crafted family thriller that is truly scary and doesn't wimp out.
02/14/08
Top CriticFor the uninitiated? Man, it's a bummer.
02/14/08
The movie, based on the best-selling series by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, tells parallel tales of fathers who abandon their children, but it glosses over the trauma of those sagas in favor of special-effects-laden escapism.
02/14/08
The story, frankly, is dull. It's essentially a siege tale, watered down for youngsters and interrupted by side trips.
02/14/08
The Spiderwick Chronicles exemplifies a problem with many of today's fantasy-adventure movies: the sense that narrative values, such as the artful building of suspense, can be slighted because the computer-generated special effects are so good.
02/14/08
The Spiderwick Chronicles is filled with ogres, trolls, griffins, brownies, boggarts, goblins, hobgoblins, sprites and faeries. But its best special effect is young Freddie Highmore in the dual lead roles of Jared and Simon Grace.
02/14/08
As kids' movies go, this is no Harry Potter, but it's an enjoyable enough adventure -- with just enough scariness.
02/14/08
The film is graced with a mostly superb cast, superior special effects, a sparkling musical score by James Horner and a fantasy-filled plot with a bit of moralizing, but, fortunately, only a bit.
02/14/08
The degree of talent attached to Spiderwick Chronicles is exceptional. It's an unlikely assembly of people for a studio fantasy film, and perhaps that's what makes the picture so fresh.
02/14/08
The director does a nice job of juggling and blending the movie's tricky tones and storylines, which could have gone badly wrong at any juncture.
02/14/08
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