Continuing on this theme of the daughters birthday, we come to the film we saw which was ‘The Spider Wick Chronicles’.
I’ve not read the books, and haven;t seen any trailers for the films… so knew nothing of the plot and therefore what we were letting ourselves in for. Once we’d seen the film and left the cinema we discovered the daughter had no idea what the film was about either but had decided she wanted to see it on the basis of the posters hanging on the wall! She thought is might be a cross between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.
In some ways she was right. There was a lot in the film that was reminiscent of the Potter plots. For example we found a boggart… tho this one came into being when a brownie was angry and was only pacified by feeding it honey! Also the Griffin was very reminiscent of the ‘hippogriff’… tho perhaps not as well rendered in CGI maybe? There were lots of other similarities but it was easy to suspend critical evaluation because the movie and plot were so fast paced.
I’ve read that the books were far more involved plotwise than the film, but this is to be expected and is nothing new. Even so, there was enough in the film to make me want to go out and buy the books in order to see if they match up to the films thrilling action.
This isn’t really the place to go into plot details, the film is too new really for me to spill the beans on the plot… or the discrepancies from the book plotline. Suffice it to say that it is quite scary in parts and my eight year old was a bit concerned now and then. I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone under her age… but for those above… this will be a great film. Even adults would enjoy the fantasy and special effects which were quite brilliantly conceived and executed.
Of the cast… the prize has to go to Freddie Highmore who played the part of twin boys and managed to produce a *very* convincing performance of two different people. I hope this kid manages to make a successful transition from child to adult actor. The two films we’ve seen him in (this and Willy Wonka) have demonstrated he has a real understanding of the actors craft.
Will I buy it on DVD when it appears?? Too right I will! This is a ‘keeper’. 😀
The Eclectic Interweb 
The daughter took me to the cinema for my birthday, we were going to see 2000 BC but it was on too late (we ended up seeing it the following Monday – that too was excellent) and out of the rest of the films that were showing Spiderwick Chronicles seemed to be the best, we thoroughly enjoyed it too.
we loved this, fian was pretty much terrified of the goblins and hid under the chair everytime the goblins came on which was pretty much most of it if i recall – hes 5, baby loved it spent half the time shouting at the goblins – shes 1 – what more can i say???