PREMIERE'S REVIEW (posted 2/15/08)

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Spiderwick, Spiderwick, too scary for a kiddie flick? Does it impress with a hatful of magical movie tricks? Hell, yeah. And a lot more. A massive griffin swoops majestically across the skies and through glaciers. Galloping, rolling toads explode into green goo. A doddering white-haired grandfather morphs into a horned, barnacled, roaring incubus with glowering reptilian eyes. Such are some of the special effects (albeit derivative) that The Spiderwick Chronicles delivers. But the film offers more than a dazzling array of CGI monsters and flying faeries. It has a serious message for kids and adults alike: appearances are not always what they seem, and without father figures children must assume adult responsibilities and confront the hardships of the world in order to survive and overcome.

Adapted by director Mark Waters (Just Like Heaven, Mean Girls) and a trio of screenwriters (including indie king John Sayles) from Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black's masterfully illustrated fantasy series and produced by, among others, Kathleen Kennedy (perhaps best known for her collaborations with Steven Spielberg), Spiderwick centers on Jared (Freddie Highmore), a young boy struggling to accept his parent's separation who, along with his twin brother, Simon (yes, also played by Highmore), fencing-mad sister Mallory (Sarah Bolger) and their mother (Mary-Louise Parker, in a watered-down reprisal of her harassed but affectionately off-beat maternal role in Weeds) move into a standard-issue creepy haunted house in the middle of nowhere. The house, which belonged to Aunt Lucinda before she checked into a nuthouse, has "that old people smell," and within minutes of stepping over the threshold, Jared hears unsettling scurrying sounds behind the walls and observes a few eccentricities such as lines of salt on the window sills and an inordinate number of cans of tomato sauce and bear-shaped plastic bottles of honey in the larder. Small objects suddenly disappear only to resurface among a nest of other random items, including an ornate key, in hidden dumbwaiter in the kitchen wall.