The Spiderwick Chronicles was a book series created by Tony DeTerilizzi and Holly Black. Consisting of five books made from 2003-2004, chronicling the story of a family being introduced to a fantastical world filled with wonders and horrors proved popular enough to earn itself several other books detailing the creatures within this world, as well as earning itself a film version done by Nickelodeon in 2008. Moving into a house long left abandoned by their relatives, the Grace family settle into a woodland decrepit mansion, mainly due to the mother (played by Mary Louise Parker) being unable to afford a proper house after going through a divorce. The family consists of twin brothers Jared and Simon (both played by Freddie Highmore) and teenage daughter Mallory (played by Sarah Bolger), with Jared wishing to stay with his father instead. Upon finding a mysterious book from the house’s previous owner, his great uncle Arthur Spiderwick (played by David Strathairn), the contents reveal to Jared a world outside of his own filled with Fairies, Bogarts, Goblins and Ogres. Hearing from the residential Bogart, Thimbletack (voiced by Martin Short), the family is put in danger when an ogre named Mulgarath (voiced by Nick Nolte) yearns for the book’s content in order to destroy every living fantasy creature. With their safety soon to be destroyed, the family have to find a way to destroy the book and stop Mulgarath from getting the knowledge to kill everyone. The late 2000s were packed with several fantasy novels being turned into films like Bridge to Terabithia, The Golden Compass, and Inkheart, and they were not received very strongly with many people feeling they missed the spirit of what the book stood for. If there is anything that can be given to Spiderwick is that it keeps largely faithful to its source material and produced a film that is imperfect, but perfectly solid for what it was based on.

The books themselves were far less complicated and less plot stuffed than other examples of its type, which ultimately helped the film out in the long run. Since the book’s story was filled with creative creatures and building upon its fantastical world instead of a lot of exposition and plot, it meant that the film could feature a good majority of the story without it feeling overstuffed or narratively lacking. While it is still packed with a lot of information and the film’s pace goes so quick that it doesn’t really let any moments sit and think, its not hard to follow anything as the rules created for the world are well established and delightfully creative. The film is at its best when it incorporates the fantastical element, which leaves the opening 10mins feeling pretty slow and unengaging. Thankfully, the film moves through most of its clichés pretty quickly and instead allows the fantasy to have an almost ‘’scary stories around the campfire’’ kind of atmosphere, where it feels like a palette tester for a genuine scary kid’s film. Unfortunately, the fact that the film is created by Nickelodeon prevents the film from going full creepy and instead loosens the tension sometimes at inappropriate times. The directing also does not help in this regard; with the actors feeling a bit lost and directionless, the music being too noticeable and sappy in moments, and the movie not really having any solid moments of emotion that feel authentic or realistic.

The characters from the story were pretty cookie-cutter and traditional for a typical fantasy story and therefore the strengths are in its fictional characters. Most of the creatures created for this series look pretty cool and have distinct enough designs that they give the film a nice atmosphere that tries to incorporate a kids-like realism within it, where the creatures are strange looking but not too overboard to feel completely alien, like fairies being made of flowers and the goblins being invisible. The main child actors are okay; they feel a bit hoaky in moments and don’t always have the best delivery but get better as the film goes along and don’t destroy the film overall. The adult actors are where things get a bit shaky with examples like Mary Louise Park as the mother and especially Nick Nolte as the villain being pretty bad overall. There are some exceptions to this, like Joan Plowright who plays the family’s great aunt and is part of a pretty sad scene involving losing her, and Arthur Spiderwick himself played by David Strathairn, who gives off that impression of being both sophisticated and whimsical at the same time without feeling annoying.  The villain largely feels like a typical fantasy villain in how he is built up yet doesn’t  feel intimidated or interesting in the slightest with a boring design and silly sounding voice. Thimbletack voiced by Martin Short has a cute concept where he switches between a sweet bashful creature to a green gruesome menace, but his lack of purpose along with rhyming dialogue gets a bit annoying after a while. Seth Rogen as this piggish type creature actually works pretty good with a simple design, decent effects, and a few okay lines.

The atmosphere that the film creates is a nice mix between colorful whimsy and harsh danger, and even with the Nickelodeon influence, it has elements in there that feel like it could have been something more if it weren’t held back. The woodland aesthetic adds to the floral designs of the creatures and allows for some nice warm nature colors that works in both night and day to bring some nice visuals. The effects for the film are by no means realistic looking and can sometimes show their age, but due to their heavy reliance on using them for the creatures mean that at least they are creative looking and colorful enough to not be ugly to look at. Thanks to this, there are many pleasant looking moments that capture the light moments where it needs to be nice looking and the harsher moments where the creatures can look grizzlier. While the creatures are featured throughout, they don’t impact the story overall outside of the Goblin bad guys who are not that interesting looking. The music done by James Horner is still lively and captures the emotions of a scene pretty nicely as per usual for him but being a Nickelodeon film means that it can sometimes be a bit intrusive and over-the-top.

For what Spiderwick Chronicles could have been especially with other examples of the genre not being too excellent for the time, the movie sticks true to the source material pretty closely while still taking advantage of the creative elements to create a film that isn’t too bad to sit through. It is slightly shallow in nature due to the fast pacing and various creative elements being used for exposition, the drama feeling pretty undeveloped and cliched, and the movie could’ve worked far stronger if the tone was allowed to be more extreme and captured a darker element as the locations and creatures are just waiting to be turned into a kids horror film, but for what it is, it has watchable characters, fine enough acting, acceptable yet pretty visuals and enough of a creative edge that it’s a decent enough watch. A decent enough film to check out and see the world that has been unseen for so long.