Wonderfully offbeat film!

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Plot; When he and his family move into an old family estate, a young boy finds a book that opens his eyes to an unseen world of goblins and monsters. Came out at the tale end of Hollywood's "Get me the next Harry Potter!" phase (which was followed by the "Get me the next Twilight!" phase, which was followed by the "Get me the next Hunger Games!" phase, etc.). Fares better than most, w/solid direction and great performances from a young Freddie Highmore (in a duel role) and Sarah Bolger. Starts off w/a real sense of mystery, but bogs down a bit w/a wonky and undercooked mythology and a villain who isn't present enough to create true menace.

I really liked this movie from beginning to end. Although the special effects were good they did not have to make up for any flaws in this film. The story could be interesting to both kids and children, and has a good theme about how to move on in life when things change and how to deal with stress in the family,so maybe a good one for the holidays. There are some fight scenes but nothing too gruesome and very good role models and characters in both male and female characters. I just loved this movie and now need to read the books. I felt though some parts were really interesting and could have been developed more, sometimes the movie just moves along to quickly almost seeming to leave loose ends. Also more scenes with just the fantasy characters not interacting with the human characters. But this story was really heart warming and entertaining and reminded me of favorite children's books of my childhood.

Once upon a time, upon moving into the run-down Spiderwick Estate with their mother, twin brothers Jared and Simon Grace, along with their sister Mallory, find themselves pulled into an alternate world full of faeries and other creatures. Unable to explain the strange disappearances and accidents that seem to be happening on a daily basis, the family blames it all on Jared. When he, Simon and Mallory investigate what's really going on, they uncover the fantastic truth of the Spiderwick estate and of the creatures that inhabit it.Well directed with an interesting story that keeps you watching. Good acting all round, the CGI effects were well implemented too, with various characters and creatures popping up here and there to provide comedic relief and action pivotal plot development. The film was well paced and doesn't feel its been rushed. The other excellent transformations are when Mulgarath shape shifts at different points in the movie. The fight scene between the sister and the unseen goblins is pretty cool.Overall a good solid fantasy/adventure/action film for all. Would recommend this to anyone who likes fantasy films. Enjoy!

The Spiderwick Chronicles is the film for kids who weren't quite old enough to see Pan's Labyrinth and are far too young to be able to remember Jumanji. To say that it falls in between the two films in terms of overall grade is not saying much, as many films done such a thing, but while this doesn't have the mature, sweeping majesty of del Toro's master work, it actually dares to be a bit more than the somewhat episodic demonstration of spooky special effects and meek character arcs that made up Joe Johnston's 1995 action/horror concept movie. In short, the film is actually rather enjoyable and I was surprised as to how it eventually congealed into this pretty decent adventure piece about magical worlds and differing, fictional creatures with their own set of characteristics and agendas all coming to interact with one another and our own world. There is a fun giddiness to proceedings, and while it doesn't quite crack the emotional marks of great magnitude for which it aims, there is a decent, solid adventure film in there with a genuine sense of terror and danger apparent.The film is about three child siblings who become mixed up in a plot to take over the world, a plot instigated by small, evil little creatures who're led by one rather large evil creature. This character is the film's strong antagonist, a shape-shifting ogre named Mulgarath, played by Nick Nolte – Nolte appears to be channeling David Bowie from 1986's "Labyrinth", although the beast itself looks a little too much like a de-masked Predator to be anything truly original or frightening. The children are Mallory, Simon and Jared Grace -with Sarah Bolger playing the eldest in Mallory and Freddie Highmore doubling up in playing both of her younger brothers. The deadly, threatening means by which these creatures think they're going to do this, however, is through that of......a book, and it is inside of their new home that this book is located. Their new home is actually a rather old one, one of those large; spooky looking houses from centuries ago which comes complete with a lone, circular window on its top storey. Around it lies woodland, and there is nary another soul for miles. Preceding this family of four moving in (not forgetting their mother, Helen!) was an odd scientist whose interests and experiments on animals and insects eighty years ago doubled up as the early findings on all that'll follow.So far, so Jumanji: the fatherless family unit with a young son, who does not speak; of whom are at logger-heads with one another in a social sense, thus need a lesson in teamwork, but of whom are then traversed off onto a scary adventure wherein they find an item in the attic (not a board game this time, a book) that carries with it the ability to induce the sort of horrors and impending doom only a special effects house could. It is some general messing around on a generally slow day that brings about the evils of this Macguffin, namely: invisible goblins who, in spite of their ability, mostly decide to hide in the long grass anyway. They are invisible, of course, so that the grown-ups won't be able to see them, while the film tries to eke out as much tension as possible from the initial exchanges by having the one sibling no one will believe/entrust, in Jared, initially stumble upon it. Poor Jared tries to tell his older sister about the threat of the impending doom and how he's started to see mythical creatures who have appeared from nowhere and started talking to him. Needless to say, it won't wash and it reminds us of the positive writings on a Japanese animation from the 1980s entitled "My Neighbour Totoro", when that particular film was praised for its subversion of such a limp tactic: its own infant characters found magical beasts only to rush and tell their parent, who actually believed them anyway and the film played out from there.When everyone is eventually in on it, the film gets some energy going and actually breaks out into a fairly involving; fairly gripping chase/adventure piece which has them dart all around the local town on top of a couple of other places few have ever before treaded. There is an amusing stop to the local psychiatric hospital, where their great aunt Lucinda (Plowright) is housed out of her stumbling upon similar plots and creatures when she was a kid. Back then, there wasn't anyone around to believe her, thus she ended up where she is but the whole episode reminded me of what befell Sarah Connor in the second Terminator film: a desperate attempt to inform everyone of a shocking reality, but no one around to actually chip in. Thus, it's off to the cells. One can only guess what her equivalent to the line: "Anybody not wearing two million sun-block is going to have a really bad day, get it!?" was when trying to get across to her doctors that the end is nigh.There's enough in The Spiderwick Chronicles to like; this alternate idea that magical worlds full of unreal things are dangerous and could cost you your life as opposed to being these fun, fluffy places wherein you'd quite like to lose yourself (alá the early Harry Potter films, et al.) is refreshing. Its core themes of team work and trust are as apparent here as they are in the Narnia films or anywhere else, while its imagery towards the end of the strong family unit working together as one blooded component to defend one's home is striking in a world of gay adoption and such. In spite of its lack of originality, the film is exciting and fleetingly quite frightening – a film those of a younger disposition will no doubt enjoy more than others, but that's not to say it is impossible to enjoy whatever your age.