The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)

Here’s a theory. In the last couple of years, well perhaps, since The Lord of the Rings, it was seems that the best of the fantasy genre came from the little studios or those that doesn’t had much exposure to the public. How many of you have seen that little movie called “Bridge to Terabithia”? Or even had heard about it? The film was short lived in our local cinemas, but it was my precious little gem in the year 2007 as opposed to that little dud, big studio, big stars, and big exposure “The Golden Compass” which was nowhere near my top 50 of that year. And then we had this “The Spiderwick Chronicles”.

A quick search in my short-term memory reveals that this year had only seen two fantasy films. This, and that piece of crap from Disney, “The Chronicles of Narnia – The Prince Caspian”. In term of exposure, budget, and production, Narnia had all the big numbers. But, (perhaps not) surprisingly, The Spiderwick Chronicles outshone Narnia in nearly every aspect. Good directing, fluid story-telling, characters that I’m actually cared, and some little meaningful values on family.

Jared Grace is as grumpy as a kid you could imagine. He hated his mom’s decision to leave New York for a worn old house up in the nowhere. But, he and his big sister, Malloy who was old enough to know the real reason for their apparently sudden move out of New York but not old enough to not hitting him during his tantrum, and his pacifist brother, Simon doesn’t really have any choice in the matter. They quickly learnt the oddities in the house. Salt on the window sills, noises in the wall, and a book which had a warning note for not reading it attached to it. But, of course, what’d you expect from a kid who was given a warning? He’d break it for a sheer curiosity, if anything. Jared who found the book, written by his great-great ancestor, Arthur Spiderwick, eagerly read the book and “WHAM!” something mysterious happened.

The film moves quickly from that point almost relentless (i just found out that the film was adapted from five books crammed into one single 90 minutes film). And it’s something I could really appreciate. We’re quickly introduced to the nature of the book and mystical creatures that suddenly appearing around them. And one after another, our protagonists went through several ‘quests’ to defeat the malignant villain in this film, a huge powerful ogre who wishes to rule the mystical world and beyond.

Fantasy film is usually and arguably should be easy in plot. Some good guys to get the ball rolling, an uber-villain, a means to pit these opposite party engaged, and a predictable triumph. Really, it hasn’t really changed that much since, oh, the first inception of fantasy genre. The Spiderwick Chronicles, as with many fantasies that preceded it follow this basic plot. Hence, there should be of no surprise of how this film is going to wrap itself. Alas, what made this film is different and worth a word of praise from your humble reviewer here is that this film manages to keep it true to the story, providing a delicious pace and fluid story-telling as well as characters that we’re actually cared about which sadly has been lacked in a fair amount from that Narnia … thing.

My rating: *** / **** - A nice little film for children. Had I had children, I would pick this film over Narnia on any given time.