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'The Spiderwick Chronicles'

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BY GENE SEYMOUR | gene.seymour@newsday.com

February 14, 2008

As movie fantasies go, "The Spiderwick Chronicles" has a modest, almost ramshackle aggressiveness that, against all odds, manages to enchant, if not exactly transport. The movie nicely appropriates the unassuming, yet companionable tone of the series of books by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black from which it's adapted. Even the "ick" factor - always an imperative with movies co-produced by Nickelodeon - is kept at a temperate, yet properly skin-crawling level.

Part of this "Spiderwick's" magic comes in watching Freddie Highmore from "Finding Neverland" adroitly playing twin brothers Simon and Jared Grace. Jared's the sullen, volatile one who's not at all down with his newly separated mother (Mary-Louise Parker) dragging him, blasé Simon and pushy big sister Mallory (Sarah Bolger) out of New York City and into what one of them describes as an "Addams Family house" somewhere upstate.

Jared's the one who first notices that when you knock on the walls, the walls knock back. This leads him to find both a honey-guzzling brownie named Thimbletack (voice by Martin Short) and a leather- bound guide to magical beings assembled by Jared's great-uncle Arthur Spiderwick (David Straithairn), the house's original owner, who vanished about 80 years before.

The book's discovery unleashes some very bad juju in the immediate vicinity, where packs of marauding goblins lay siege to the Spiderwick manse. Their leader, a crafty, shape-shifting ogre named Mulgarth (Nick Nolte), wants the Spiderwick "Field Guide to the Fantastical World" for universal domination purposes. Only a united front by the Grace brood stands in his way - along with lots of salt and tomato sauce.

Director Mark Waters here demonstrates the affinity for adolescent snarkiness previously exhibited in 2003's "Freaky Friday" and 2005's "Mean Girls." Working with a script written by Karey Kirkpatrick, David Berenbaum and the redoubtable John Sayles, Waters also lightly administers persuasive emotional nuance to what would otherwise come across as either heavy-handed or silly. One may wish for just a little more of Parker than we're getting here. But they're doing it mostly for - and with - the kids here.

THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES (PG). Brash and brisk adaptation of the popular fantasy books features the Grace family under siege by icky things of various sizes. Freddie Highmore plays twins Jared and Simon, Mary-Louise Parker is mom and Nick Nolte is the ogre who wants them all ground to dust. Also with David Straithairn, Joan Plowright, Sarah Bolger, Martin Short and Seth Rogin. Directed by Mark Waters. 1:35. Some images may be too frightening for younger children. At area theaters.