 The Spiderwick Chronicles may not have a grabber of a title, but several reviewers seem to have been carried away by the plot. Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News writes that the film starts off slowly, "But once the action starts, it barely stops for a breath. And the good thing is, all the running and fighting means something, thanks to that carefully constructed beginning." Tasha Robinson in the Chicago Tribune suggests that fans of the books by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi will not be disappointed. "It isn't quite the world of the books. But it's a perfectly magical and exciting one in its own right," she writes. David Wiegand in the San Francisco Chronicle is one of several other critics who describe the film as "magical," adding, "The film is graced with a mostly superb cast, superior special effects, a sparkling musical score by James Horner and a fantasy-filled plot with a bit of moralizing, but, fortunately, only a bit." The reviews are not universally good, however, and some of them show utter disdain. A.O. Scott in the New York Times writes that the movie feels "like a sloppy, secondhand pander." There are also many middlin' reviews, like Lisa Kennedy's in the Denver Post, who writes: "Spiderwick is modest, not epic. It's got thrills but is not allegorically deep or daunting like the Harry Potter or Narnia flicks. It skews young." And Elizabeth Weitzman ho-hums in the New York Daily News: "With Harry Potter MIA until November, and no chance to revisit Narnia before May, The Spiderwick Chronicles should pass as a suitable substitute for young adventurers (and the grownups who love them)." |
