The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-Ray Review

By Ned Jordan

The Spiderwick Chronicles opens with the recently divorced Helen Grace bringing her family, teenaged Mallory, and tween twins Jared and Simon, to an old family mansion in the woods that has remained untouched for several years. Almost immediately after moving in strange occurrences begin to plague the family, and Jared's investigation into their cause eventually leads him to find a secret office in the house. It's here that he finds the Spiderwick Chronicles, a book written by his great-great-uncle. The Chronicles tell of the fairy world that lives alongside our own and the secrets of its denizens. Such knowledge is also sought by an ogre king, Mulgrath, who will stop at nothing to get the book and to learn the secrets it contains.

The Spiderwick Chronicles is one of those film adaptations that leaves you with the feeling that there's a lot of things in the original books that has been left out of the movie. The movie tells a complete story, but some of its elements feel glossed over and there's a tendency for the new characters to provide quick overviews of themselves when introduced, as if you were meeting them at a speed dating event and the clock was ticking. A ten year old may not notice or care, especially if he or she has read the series of books on which the movie is based. While this all does keep the movie zipping along, afterwards you are left with this feeling that there was probably more to the story.

The Spiderwick Chronicles makes extensive use of computer generated effects to bring its fairy world creatures to life but it resists the temptation to rely on special effects alone to carry the movie. The creatures are lifelike and well-animated, and this helps make you believe that such creatures could really exist. With all of the technology behind the creatures its surprising that the movie doesn't do too well with an old movie trick. A split screen technique is used when Jared and Simon appear on screen together, but when they are speaking to each other they never make eye contact. Each of them appears to be looking past or to the side of each other. It's a small detail, but one of those things that you can't help but notice and be distracted by it.

The Blu-Ray version has a noticeably better picture than the DVD version if you have a HDTV with a larger screen.  The details on the various fantastical creatures really come to life, and the brightly colored fairies themselves look particularly amazing on Blu-Ray. 

Overall The Spiderwick Chronicles does a pretty decent job of bringing a magical world to life. It won't necessarily grab hold of your imagination and refuse to let go, but it's a fun little visit to a world where trolls and fairies exist. The disc comes with a number of special features that give you a look at how the film was made and some looks into Spiderwick's world. The features are well-produced, and add a nice set of companion pieces to the film.  They'll also be of interest to children because several of them are not technical dissections of how the film was made, but rather begin with the assumption that everything seen in the movie is true and that we're all surrounded by fantastical creatures that we can not see.

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