Review of The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008) by Robomartion — 12 Aug 2022

It has great atmosphere and setting, cinematography, set design, CGI and music and the actor playing Arthur Spiderwick is great. However there is a big focus on the dysfunctional family. Mallory is constantly whining and fighting with her brothers and arguing with their mother making it extremely unconformable for quite a big chunk of the movie.

I didn't think the books were that involved with the emotional aspects and was more about the fantasy which is where the movie shines. Even though the movie is based on 5 books each are quite short, in total on the shorter end of young adult books, but still the film is over quite quickly. The ending comes too easily and some of the other aspects a overly heavy for a children's movie. Points gained for the fantasy, points lost for the drama and overly serious undertones and tonal inconsistency. Freddy Highmore plays two people in this film which might surprise you, thinking they were identical twins. Personally I think they should have gone with two separate actors because if you know the trick then the two characters start to blur together.