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Based on the bestselling illustrated book series from Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, Mark Water’s screen adaptation is a highlight reel of some of the best parts from the five-book adventure. Like the HARRY POTTER series, the screen adaptation pares down the material to fit the length of a feature film, some fans will not like this fact, but others unfamiliar with the books will just get caught up in the breakneck speed of the wonderment.

Jared Grace (Freddie Highmore, FINDING NEVERLAND) is a troublesome child to his recently separated mother Helen (Mary-Louise Parker, TV’s WEEDS). Along with his straight-laced twin brother Simon (also Highmore) and fencing-loving sister Mallory (Sarah Bolger, IN AMERICA), they move to the abandoned house of their institutionalized relative Aunt Lucinda (Joan Plowright, 1996’s 101 DALMATIANS). Jared quickly comes to suspect something strange in the house, eventually finding a dumbwaiter that leads to a hidden room where he finds his great uncle Arthur Spiderwick’s field guide to the fantastical world. Spiderwick (David Strathairn, GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK) mysteriously disappeared 80 years prior and set the tiny brownie Thimbletack (Martin Short, INNNER SPACE) up as the book’s protector. Turns out, the forest is filled with goblins lead by the sinister ogre Mulgarath (Nick Nolte, HULK), who wants nothing more than to possess the knowledge inside the guide.

In condensing the story, some of the twists and turns of the books have been abandoned, making the story more of a siege of the house tale. Mulgarath wants the book and needs to get into the house. Because of the speed, some of the details of the personalities of the characters are lost, but the essence is still there, most importantly Jared. What struck me about the books was how honest they were about Jared’s anger issues and how it affected his mother, who was trying to do her best in a tough situation. While some of the more character based tension-filled moments of the book where skipped in the film for a more plot-driven structure, there was enough of the dynamic between Jared and his mother to make it work on an emotional level. At the end, the film also ties in a nice parallel father-child subplot as well.

Most of the changes are only structural, keeping the mystery of the hidden fantastic world alive. Kids will respond to the magic of using stone circles to see faeries and hobgoblins, and taking a ride on the back of a griffin. The only part that comes off clunky in the translation to the screen is where the Grace children find Arthur captured by a white cloud of faeries. Though it doesn’t contain the rich characters of the HARRY POTTER films or BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA, this family fantasy is rousing and at times scary. SPIDERWICK harkens back to classic Disney family productions when real danger wasn’t sanitized from the adventures of children.

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