With all the success enjoyed by the Harry Potter film franchise, as well as Lord of the Rings and the first Chronicles of Narnia movie, it seems like a lot more fantasy movies are getting made of late; it’s a hot genre right now, and so does a movie like The SpiderWick Chronicles get made.
Made by Nickelodeon Movies and distributed by Paramount Pictures, The SpiderWick Chronicles is aimed squarely at the younger crowd, though sadly not in as intelligent ways as the Harry Potter films are made.
The plot revolves around the four children of a recently divorced woman who move to the country following the dissolution of their mother’s marriage. Not caring for the house or the country initially, they explore and eventually discover a mysterious field guide that helps them see a world they never knew existed with the naked eye; a world full of brownies and faeries, where magic is real and flash memory is a spell, not a silicon chip.
The plot is obvious an appeal to the Harry Potter crowd, like so many others, yet this film lacks that franchise’s intelligence and solid commercial appeal. Rife with genre clichés, the plot is uninteresting and strangely keeps the kids tied to the house, rather than exploring a giant alternate world in a grand adventure.
This insular tone makes the movie feel a bit claustrophobic and sends a mixed message to younger viewers; namely, when the world gets big and scary… hide away in your house and don’t leave, because the world out there really is as scary and dangerous as it seems… and even more so than you realize!
For this reason, The SpiderWick Chronicles is hard to recommend. Despite some pleasant casting, including Martin Short and Nick Nolte in unrecognizable roles, the story quite simply lacks … magic.
Tags: flash memory, Martin Short, Nickelodeon Movies, SpiderWick Chronicles
