The Spiderwick Chronicles
Posted by J on July 1, 2008
The Spiderwick Chronicles is a Costco version of Harry Potter, right down to the magic spell that lets the 
main characters ride on the back of a griffin. You’d think that movie audiences would get tired of fantasy spinoffs like Spiderwick, but the key marketing demographic for this movie is 8-13 year olds. Admittedly, if we were eight years old, we’d want to watch this movie twenty-five times. We also would want to watch movies like it twenty-five times. That’s why they make this kind of movie again and again and again.
Spiderwick has some things going for it. The whole plot is about a family uniting as foreign invaders try to invade their land and steal and destroy their property. You can’t get more red-state America than that. This family, dysfunctional and fatherless, has just moved into a big old house in the woods. Soon after, they find out that the surrounding area is filled with magical creatures, none of whom are inherently good (though several are friendly), and some of them want to destroy the house. These family-destroying house invaders are led by the ogre, Mulgarath, and his goblin army. Mulgarath wants a book of secrets located inside the house, but he and the goblins can’t barge into the house because of a protective magic circle surrounding it. And of course we all know that Mulgarath is going to find some way in.
The adults who see this as a Costco Harry Potter will spot some problems. One of those is typical of movies like this. The main character — in this case, a young boy named Jared Grace — does several stupid things, and the only point of him doing them is to propel the plot forward. Another issue is the lack of geography. We’re all familiar with Narnia and Middle-earth, but all Spiderwick has is the house and its surrounding backyard. With one exception (the non-location of which reinforces our point), there’s never a sense that the fairyland world of these mythical creatures extends beyond the family’s few acres, as the Spiderwick Chronicles book says it does. All that said, it’s still a pretty good movie, even for adults who’ve seen this kind of thing ten times before.
Finally, there’s a test for purists. There’s one uttered “spell,” if you can call it that. But still, if you’re blackballing Harry Potter for its positive depictions of spellcraft, you have to blackball this one too, just as you’re blackballing Lord of the Rings. Meanwhile, we’re waiting on the mass evangelical protest against kids movies that promote blasphemy and child rebellion. The silence has deafening been since the early 1960s.
Entertainment: 7
Intelligence: 4
Morality: 6
