The Film
Ever since the release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in the winter of 2001, and the immense box office success that would follow, Hollywood has been on a seemingly never ending search for the next huge fantasy “franchise.” The ultra-conservative Walden Media, under the auspices of major film studios, have answered the call with numerous banal fantasy adaptations of their own, including The Seeker, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, The Waterhorse, and most popular of them all, The Chronicles of Narnia -- their response to The Lord of The Rings trilogy.
Something all of these would-be successors to Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings have in common is their complete lack of understanding as to what made the aforementioned films so successful. First and foremost, it was their strong source material. This recent crop of fantasy fodder does one other thing that the Potter and Rings trilogies never did – and that is, purposely strip the subject matter of what may be deemed too difficult for children to cope with, thereby rendering the stories utterly superficial.
Along comes The Spiderwick Chronicles into the fray of the rapidly cluttered field of fantasy films. Based on the series of children's books, naturally, by author Holly Black and illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi, and brought to the screen by director Mark Waters, The Spiderwick Chronicles follows the pattern of most recent films in the fantasy genre in that it plays down the darker elements of its source material in an effort to strictly target the "family-friendly", twelve and under crowd.
The Grace family, twins Jared and Simon (Freddie Highmore), their older sister Mallory (Sarah Bolger) and recently divorced mom Helen (Mary-Louise Parker) arrive at the Spiderwick Estate after moving from New York City. The house is a typically creepy, dark mansion out in the middle of nowhere, which was once lived in by the family's ancestors Arthur Spiderwick (David Strathairn) and Aunt Lucinda Spiderwick (Joan Plowright). Aunt Lucinda bequeathed the mansion to the family after she was admitted to a sanitarium.
Jared, the more assertive of the two twins, has anger issues over his parents' divorce. Mallory is the typical elder sister bully, constantly practicing fencing, her extra-curricular activity of choice. Simon is a pacifist – we know this because he says so. Director Mark Waters doesn't allow the dysfunctional family issues to get in the way of his film for too long. From the moment the family walk through the front door, strange things begin to happen, weird noises are heard, objects flash by out of the corner of one's eye, and the action starts in right away. As "children will be children," Jared goes on a expedition through the house and discovers Arthur Spiderwick's library where he comes across a book, Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You, and a note warning not to read it or else risk peril. Of course he reads it, and it opens up a world of magical beings, of hobgoblins and brownies, ogres, trolls and more.
The peril lies in Mulgarath (Nick Nolte), the shape-shifting ogre who wants possession of the one book to rule them all, uh, of the field guide, which will give him power over all of the "fantastical" creatures and humans as well. Sadly, throughout the entire film, we never get an explanation of all the things in the book and why or how it will make Mulgarath so powerful. What we get, instead, are ninety-minutes of artfully crafted CG animated creatures, such as Thimbletak (voiced by Martin Short) -- the brownie guardian of the field guide who does mischievous things when he gets upset -- and a plethora
of adrenalin inducing chases, sword fights, and explosions.
Neither the relationship of the Grace family nor the lore of Spiderwick and its fantasy world are explored with much depth at all. Both of these elements, which were far more central to the series of books, have been sacrificed in favor of more CG effects and action sequences. Although the source material itself is merely an amalgam of many different typical fantasy stories, it does a better job at telling the common story of the fractured family coming together through its struggle against a world of mystical beings.
Still, Spiderwick as a film is easy to watch, and English actor Freddie Highmore puts on a brilliant performance as twin brothers with opposing personalities. His U.S. accent is spot on, and his subtlety in portraying the two brothers is a wonder for someone of his age. He is probably the biggest saving grace (no pun intended) of this film besides the marvelous work done by ILM and Tippet Studio on the animated creatures that inhabit the world of Spiderwick. Ultimately, although Spiderwick will assuredly entertain some children and provide an easy ninety-minutes of fun for adults, it is a film that won't sit too long in one's memory and doesn't retain much replay value.
The Picture
With its 2.35:1 original theatrical aspect ratio intact and a high quality 1080p/24 AVC/MPEG-4 encoding, The Spiderwick Chronicles' picture quality does not disappoint. With a look that balances light and dark, inky blacks with vibrant colors that shimmer and burst from the screen, the transfer captures all the detail with a fine amount of grain, good amounts of shadow detail, natural flesh tones, well-set contrast levels that never bloom, and no noticeable compression artifacts. There is one small quibble with this transfer and that is sometimes the deep blacks cause some crush in darker scenes, but it does not take much quality away from the overall presentation of the transfer.
The Sound
Paramount have brought The Spiderwick Chronicles to Blu-ray Disc with English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (48kHz/24-bit) and English, French, and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 audio options. I listened to the lossless TrueHD mix for this review, and although it was good, I cannot say that it was exceptional. Dialogue, consistently placed in the center channel, was clear, full range and always intelligible even during the film's more boisterous special effects laden scenes. The mix made good use of all five main channels, often filling the surrounds with discrete sound effects, and low frequencies were in abundance if not booming. The scene in the tunnels where Jared and Mallory are chased by the troll offers a marvelous example of the LFE being put to good use by this TrueHD mix.
The overall sound design of the mix still left something to be desired, however. Dynamic range was definitely limited a bit, so that it often sounded constrained and lacked impact. There was also a lack of ambience to hold the entire mix together and to open up the soundstage. The sound of the mix was far too dry, particularly for source material of this nature. So, although the mix was lively and solid overall, it was certainly not as good as it could have been.
The Extras
Not surprisingly for a film that seems so targeted at children, the extras on this release are also produced for a younger audience. Sadly, they are quite condescending in their tone; the way director Mark Waters speaks in an almost sing-song tone while he assures the viewer that all of the creatures and events in this film are real, is a sad commentary on the way our youth are coddled today. His constant use of the cumbersome word "fantastical" is also quite obnoxious, pretentious, and frankly, when used to describe a fantasy film, redundant.
Fortunately, Paramount at least redeem themselves a bit by offering most of the video extras on this disc in high definition and spare us yet another audio commentary track, which is not surprising for a release so marketed to younger audiences.
Extras included on this release are:
Final Thoughts
Hollywood seems to be having a love affair with fantasy films; just about any series of children's books that could possibly be categorized as fantasy is being grabbed up and turned into a big-budget CGI spectacle. The Spiderwick Chronicles is another one of these films. Although it has its moments, and certainly does have some entertainment value, director Mark Waters has basically given us just another run-of the-mill film with themes borrowed from just about every other film in the genre that came before it. It is a decent, but not great popcorn film to spend 90 minutes of your time on and this Blu-ray Disc edition with its marvelous video transfer and competent lossless sound is the best way to experience it.
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Product Details
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