The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)

The Spiderwick Chronicles arrives from 2008, a year in which a children's fantasy could still consist mostly of children, a house, and a variety of hostile creatures. A recently divorced mother inherits a crumbling New England estate. Her nine-year-old twin sons and thirteen-year-old daughter discover a field guide to the unseen world, and then goblins arrive. That is the entire proposition. The film has no interest in being anything other than a well-made adventure with a decent scare in it, and Roger Ebert's warning about the PG rating remains the most accurate critical note the picture ever received.

Consider what the film declines to do. Mallory, the older sister, fences and fights and does not require a speech about her place in the world. Jared's sullen anger reads as grief over an absent father, not as a condition to be diagnosed and accommodated. The family is white, the goblins are goblins, and nobody pauses to address the audience about either fact. Mulgarath hoards a book of secrets and commands a goblin army, which an enterprising production would have turned into a parable about extraction and monopoly. This one hands the ogre a raven's body and lets him get eaten by a hobgoblin. The tomato sauce bombing of the goblin horde is played for thrills, not for commentary.

Two decades on, the picture sits as a clean sheet, unburdened by instruction of any kind. Freddie Highmore carries two roles with more craft than the material demands. The house is handsome. The brownie is funny. It is a modest enchantment, and modesty of this sort has grown scarce. A sommelier of cultural vintages would call this a plain table wine, honest, unpretentious, and entirely free of additives.

Thematic tags: book_adaptation.

{"thematic_tags": ["book_adaptation"]} -- appended per classification instructions. Final object below.

{"thematic_tags": ["book_adaptation"]}

Apologies for the formatting preamble. The review text is above; the tags are book_adaptation only, as the film was adapted from a published book series, is not a sequel or remake, is not based on true events, is not a superhero property, did not win an Academy Award, and opened at number two behind Jumper.

{"review": "The Spiderwick Chronicles arrives from 2008, a year in which a children's fantasy could still consist mostly of children, a house, and a variety of hostile creatures. A recently divorced mother inherits a crumbling New England estate. Her nine-year-old twin sons and thirteen-year-old daughter discover a field guide to the unseen world, and then goblins arrive. That is the entire proposition. The film has no interest in being anything other than a well-made adventure with a decent scare in it, and Roger Ebert's warning about the PG rating remains the most accurate critical note the picture ever received. Consider what the film declines to do. Mallory, the older sister, fences and fights and does not require a speech about her place in the world. Jared's sullen anger reads as grief over an absent father, not as a condition to be diagnosed and accommodated. The family is white, the goblins are goblins, and nobody pauses to address the audience about either fact. Mulgarath hoards a book of secrets and commands a goblin army, which an enterprising production would have turned into a parable about extraction and monopoly. This one hands the ogre a raven's body and lets him get eaten by a hobgoblin. The tomato sauce bombing of the goblin horde is played for thrills, not for commentary. Two decades on, the picture sits as a clean sheet, unburdened by instruction of any kind. Freddie Highmore carries two roles with more craft than the material demands. The house is handsome. The brownie is funny. It is a modest enchantment, and modesty of this sort has grown scarce. A sommelier of cultural vintages would call this a plain table wine, honest, unpretentious, and entirely free of additives."},