Due to coursework and Christmas I ain't gonna be on here too much for a while
Due to coursework and Christmas I ain't gonna be on here too much for a while
Member since:07.04.2007
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It seems to be the craze of late to turn children's fantasy novels into films. We've had Harry Potter, The Golden Compass, The Lord of the Rings (though not really a children's novel) and now we have the Spiderwick Chronicles a film which is based on a whole series of books rather than anyone.
The Spiderwick Chronicles starts off with Arthur Spider wick (played by David Straitharn) compiling his field guide to the secret world around us. He has discovered that we cannot see everything and all around us all manner of creatures exist from faeries to evil orcs and he has befriended some and made enemies with others as he has learned how to see them.
The film then moves on 80 years in time and Arthur Spiderwick has disappeared many years ago and is obviously thought dead. His daughter has been sectioned to an asylum and now his granddaughter and her children move into his old house. The family has just spilt
from their father and this has left Jared (Freddie Highmore) angry and rebellious. He doesn't get on with his mother, his bossy sister or his clever twin brother also played by Highmore.
Being something of a trouble maker he gets blamed on everything bad that happens but strange things start happening that he had nothing to do with. Things go missing and his sister has her hair tied to the bed-posts during the night. Is there a ghost? Jared decides to investigate and comes across his great-grandfather's field guide to all the magical creatures and also comes across a brownie called Thimbletack. Thimbletack is a small creature who turns into another uglier bigger creature if he gets angry and can only be soothed by honey. He was friends with Arthur Spiderwick and befriends Jared. Jared accidentally walks into view of orcs with the field guide one day which starts the adventure. The orcs want the field guide as it chronicles all the weaknesses of every magical creature and they want total control. Jared must keep the book safe and keep his family safe.
This was rather a good film. It was funny, entertaining and scary. The CGI creatures were outstanding and the fairy scenes looked beautiful. We have all manners of creatures from the small brownie to a hobgoblin who loves eating birds, a massive griffin, a huge orc and his army of goblins. It had a nice mix of adventure, mild horror for children and mystery. My 10 year old brother really loved it and prefers it over The Golden Compass and I think in this era of masses of fantasy films for children this one is one of the best. It even encouraged him to buy and read the books which can't be a bad thing and the books are quite good for children around 9/10 as they're not as long as the Harry Potter and Northern Lights books.
The acting etc. is generally rather standard for the film but Freddie Highmore done a rather good job at portraying two different characters.
DVD Extras
Spiderwick it's Real
In this feature we have the film director pretending that the film is based on actual events and pretending to have met the creatures. He talks a lot about all the different creatures and they're attributes. This wasn't great. We've seen the film we know about the characters he wasn't telling us anything new and it was just boring. Children may like to hear about Spiderwick being real but after that he should have just shutup
Spiderwick World
Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi the writers who made the novels and also co-produced the film also pretend that Spiderwick is real and that they based the novels on letters written to them by the actual children. They then go on to discuss how they went about designing the look of each character. Beyond the whole pretence that Spiderwick was a reality this was not interesting and I didn't watch it all and I don't think children would care.
The Fieldguide
Here you can flick through the pages of Arthur Spiderwick's book and read about the different creatures in the film. You can also set it that when you're watching the film whenever a new creature comes up for the first time you can immediately turn to the field guide to read about it. Good idea but not used or wanted.
Overall a good film for children. It has a PG rating as it is slightly scary for younger children but it's not too bad. I bought this DVD for £5 in Tesco. It came in a nice case that had a additional cardboard sleeve that was shiny.
Trailer
http://www.spiderwickchronicles.com/
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Pictures of The Spiderwick Chronicles (DVD)
A gonlin
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