Do you remember Haley Joel Osment? He lit up the screen in The Sixth Sense (which I had ruined for me and despise the movie to this day), and enchanted America. He went on to have a fairly decent child movie star career before that dreaded time... Yes, Puberty.
It's the thing with child stars, especially boys. We love them as kids, and enjoy watching them until it comes to that awkward stage where shit goes awry. Their voices crack and end up all over the map, they get all lanky. And we turn their back on them. They may emerge later, but as far as I know, child stars aren't batting too high.
Introduce Freddy Highmore, the Haley Joel Osment for the new Millenium. He enchanted us as Peter (who Peter Pan was based on) in Finding Neverland and then teamed up with Johnny Depp (not bad coattails to ride) in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He has kept the steam going, and I will admit is currently in the brunt of the pubescent onslaught being 16, but well see his staying power.
In this, he conquers another childhood tale. The Spiderwick Chronicles is about a family who move into a creepy old house given to them by their crazy Great Aunt. We have a Mom, who is fairly emo at the time, and seems to have just finished a divorce, so she's not in a good place right now. We have a daughter who I don't remember her name, so we will refer to her as BOS (Bitchy Older Sister). Then we have Freddy doing the Lindsay Lohan double threat, playing twin brothers Jared (the main character) and the other one who I don't remember his name either, so we will refer to him as Nerdmotron 5000, as it is most fitting (I did look up his name, and it is Simon, but I prefer my title for him. This aside to to point out how Simon is once again a nerdy character in a movie, much like the Chipmunk. Parents, be warned, you damn your son to a world of, well Warcraft, National Geographic and pocket protectors if you name him Simon).
So the family run down. BOS is a bitch, cause she's the older sister. Nerdmotron 5000 is a nerd, and apparently a passivist, as he loves to point out (pussy). Jared is the troubled child. He has the dark, emo hair, and loves drowning out the rest of the family with his iPod. He is emo cause he's more into being with his dad than his mom, and blames her for the divorce (which is never disproven), and is counting his time til his dad takes him to live with him. So naturally, he is the outcast, and fights with his mom, and thus is the family "Boy who cried Wolf." He has daddy issues, a big theme in this movie we will discuss later.
Through a series of CRAZY events, Jared finds a book by her equally insane great, great Uncle. This book contains secrets to all the magical creatures that live in the world. He reads it in a footlocker (if you ever lose a emo person, look in one of them). In having this book, he pisses off the rat like thing that is supposed to protect the book, named Wristwatch, or tiddlywink, something fruity like that. This little creature (voiced my Martin Short) is a rat man, but if you piss him off, he legitimately hulks up, turning larger (still small) and green. But, unlike the real, awesome Hulk, he doesn't tiddlywink smash everything. He yells at you sternly when hulked up until you give him Honey. Then he calms down back to regular. So obviously, tiddlywink has a substance abuse problem, another common theme in the movie.
There is this evil troll?, elf?.....giant monster with trees on him, Mulgrath, who wants to get the book, to learn all the secrets of the creature to kill them all and rule the world. If he gets the book (nuclear bomb), Mulgrath (Hitler) will be all powerful, and even the humans (Americans) won't be able to stop him. He has a legion of goblins (SS) who do his bidding, led by, sigh, a goblin dressed as a pirate (Goebbels?). I was mad at this. Why did we need a pirate goblin. Honestly. He even got stabbed in the eye at one point, and I was waiting with despised anticipation for them to bust out an eye patch. The goblins bite and scratch their victims to death, so they are apparently teenage girls.
I admit, Mulgrath was scary. This is because they got Nick Nolte to play his human form. And I'm pretty sure the make up department tried to emulate his mug shot (seen here). F'ing scary dude.
The one other character I must point out is the Pig Dude, voice by Seth Rogen. Obvious comic relief. He is a pig that throws up on people to give them sight, is a giant pussy, and is always looking for his next fix, of eating birds (reoccurring substance abuse prob). He has a pretty absurd yet amusing part in the end of the movie, that was worth his earlier antics.
So the adventure is intense. It involved the goblins, spaghetti sauce bombs, a giant troll gila monster, a crazy old lady (no one likes those), a crazy David Strathairn, flower fairies, but no spiders. In the end, we laugh, people die, get decapitated, have fingers chopped off, melted, burned to death. PG movies have grown up.
So the underlying themes. Daddy issues are rampant throughout this. The creepy old lady has them. Her dad was the author of the book, and the goblins attacked him cause he wrote it, so the flower fairies carried him away to protect him at her age of 6. Every day she waited for him to walk up the driveway, and it only took 80 years for it to happen. Jared has them, because of the divorce. He wants to be with his dad, and hates his mom for pushing him away. Little does he know his dad is not coming for him, because he has moved in with another woman. OMG!!!!! A divorced guy moved on from his bitchy wife. NO F'ING WAY!!!! That NEVER happens. All the children cry like he died or he abandoned them. But no, he just has a new woman, and will still be their dad, and love them, and see them. Ridiculous.
It got so bad Nick Nolte transformed to the dad to seduce them to give him the book. Jared, kinda sees through this (maybe the giant yellow eyes give it away). Jared, only suspecting his dad is a phony, STABS him in the chest (RED FLAG! The author of the books really needs to see someone, simulated patricide is never a good thing). It was the demon, so he didn't murder his dad, but that's still a little effed.
Spiderwick is the same thing and a new thing. It's that epic child's tale. It's Lemony Snicket. It's a watered down Narnia. It really starts out to be Jumanji. But it's different. Mainly because of the violence that is in it. It was a little over the top, and it really seemed to scare the bejeezus out of the little kids behind me.
I'm struggling to wrap this up, and have rambled a long time, so I will get to it. I give this movie a meh (it's magical).
Date: 2.18.08
Cost: $8
Running Time: 97 minutes
Companions: André Roussimoff
Anticipated Spot on the 100: 35
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