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Film Title: The Spiderwick Chronicles

 Best for ages: 10 and up.

Movie Website: Click Here

Year Released: 2008

Rated: PG (US)

SYNOPSIS

    The Spiderwick Chronicles is based on a series of novels by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi.  The film is about a mother and her three kids whom move to their great uncle Arthur Spiderwick estate in the woods of New England. Little do they know that in the woods around the estate lies a whole other world full of fairies, goblins, trolls and more. Arthur Spiderwick spent his whole life tracking the creatures and wroth a field guide to their world. However the great evil goblin Mulgarath, sent all the trolls and goblins in the land to get the book so he can learn the magic and the secrets of the land. Arther Spiderwick, using his knowledge and magic sealed his house off so no evil could get in and hid the book in a secret room in the house.

  Almost eighty years later when the Grace kids and their mother move in the trouble maker of the family, Jared, finds the secret room and find the book.  Avoiding all the warnings, he opens the book and reads its contents. Little does he know by doing so he has opened up a can of worms and now Mulgarath once again knows where the book is when Jared crosses over the threshold, book in hand; that protects the house and the book itself. By doing so all the goblins swarm towards the house and attack anyone who tries to leave and enter the house. Now Jared along with his sister and brother must try to fight the evil after the book. With the help of a few mystical creatures, they set off to solve the mystery of the book, while avoiding evil at all costs.

VIOLENCE/GRAPHIC CONTENT/language

   The Spiderwick Chronicles does have it's fair share of violence and graphic content. There is a lot of talk about death and killing among many of the films villains and heroes.  The Spiderwick book holds a lot of dark secrets with pages that can lead to death and help some of the people and creatures learn how to kill one another by gaining the books power. Hogsqueal, a pig like creature likes to eat birds and eats quite a few in the film.

   There is a major swarm of Goblins in the film who attach the characters in this film as an invisible force, they bite grab and drag all of the human characters in this film and are constantly attacking the Spiderwick estate. One Goblin bites Simon on the leg and draws blood, they also lock him in a cage and plan to cook and eat him.  But even the human characters in this film do there fair share of killing the goblins as well, using remedies from the Spiderwick book, they use household items to make a position or sorts that kills the goblins and they burn up and melt into a green goo. Some of the goblins are also killed with various other methods such as fencing swords, or are ran over by a truck. There is also a scene that involves a stabbing with a kitchen knife as well.

   There is also your basic sibling rivalry with the two twin bothers wrestling around and even fighting with their sister, which in one scene they tie her hair to the a beds headboard or so we're though to believe. The film also does have some slight language in it although it's nothing crazy. Words like Hell and stupid and such are thrown around, but there is one particular scene where one of the character almost uses the "S" word. There is also mention that the kids father ran off with another women as well.

OVERALL VIEWS

   I actually liked The Spiderwick Chronicles. it was a fun film, but yet it did have some very violent moments. I would say it's probably a film that's better for kids over the age of nine or ten, because it does tend to get bit crazy at times. There are plenty of good heart warming moments in the film too, don't get me wrong, all in all the films plot leads to a very positive message and shows a strong bond between families. It has some really good special effects, some great acting and the overall production value is out of this world.

   The DVD has a lot of special features and is even titled as the "two disc field guide edition" as to go along with the whole theme of the film. The DVD verison has two discs one with the film and a few special features such as Spiderwick: It's all True and It's a Spiderwick World Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide. The second disc however has a ton of goodies and full featurettes such as Spiderwick: Meet the Clan, Making Spiderwick, The Magic of Spiderwick! A Final Word of Advice... Deleted Scenes and a ton more... The Blu-ray version has all the features mentioned above but in HD and the Field Guide feature is a more enhanced version than on the DVD.

   Overall, It's a great disc, and even the blu-ray version has all the great features on one blu-ray disc compared to the two discs the DVD version has. All in all they are both great disc's to own.  The DVD has a ton of features that make it well worth the buy alone. It's a DVD that your kids can really get into with not just the movie but the features as well. Well worth adding to any blu-ray or DVD collection.

BUY THIS MOVIE.