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I feel bad whenever I have no choice but to give a negative rating to a movie that so obviously has good intentions, but there's no avoiding the truth: The Spiderwick Chronicles is inferior to most children adventure stories. The idea behind the story lacks creativity, the suspense in the action-based scenes is lightweight, and a lot of the answers/solutions to things are irrefutably lame. When the family of four (minus dad) moves into the mysterious house, the movie even rushes straight into the fantasy-oriented plot rather than giving us much of a preface to anything concerning these people we just met. The way this is done is quite jarring, to say the least, and though there are some things that happen throughout the film that attempt to rectify this, they never amount to much.
The only elements that at least make this an adequate movie (at best) are the film's earnest performances (particularly that of Freddie Highmore playing twin brothers Jared and Simon), a few scattered funny moments, and the GLIMMER of a subplot involving the protagonist's father that might get us to care about Jared if it occupied, say, 15% of the movie's plot as opposed to 5% of it.
If there weren't so many children adventure stories (like last year's Bridge to Terabithia) that were so much more entertaining and inventive than this, then I'd be able to say that The Spiderwick Chronicles is good, but it's impossible to say that when not only is there a lot that is better out there, but also, these filmmakers could've done a heck of a lot better. I mean, tomato sauce? Come on.
