The Spiderwick Chronicles

Well, there were a few rocky moments, but at least we get to end Fantasy Film Week on a high note. I apologize to all of my readers out there for this review coming out on Saturday instead of Friday, but in my defense I hadn’t written it yet by the time Friday ended. As you can see, my hands were tied.

This film, despite having been a bit of a flop in theaters, is definitely the best of the movies I’ve seen this week. Apparently a lot of people avoided it because its title made them assume it was just a Narnia ripoff, though having not read any of the books or seen either film, I feel that it may be a tad presumptuous of me when I say that it is a clearly original work and everyone was being up in arms for no reason at all.

The plot, in stark contrast to the other four films this week, is actually pretty straightforward: there’s a book with info on all sorts of magical creatures, young British boy finds book, evil ogre tries to get it from him, fight fight fight. In rather startling contrast to, say, Beastmaster or Willow, it’s fast-paced, well acted, and not completely moronic. It’s pretty much exactly what you would want from a movie like this. Go check it out.

Also, the boy totally stabs his dad in the chest with a knife at one point, it's great.

Rating: *** ½