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"The Spiderwick Chronicles" (PG, 1 hr., 37 min.)
The idea of kids finding their way into an invisible fairy world bursting with sprites, brownies and goblins holds great fascination that reaches back to ancient days. "The Spiderwick Chronicles," adapted from the books by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, captures some of that magic, but might also be quite a scary experience for children under 10. More important, both artistically and when considering kids, the film runs short on a key ingredient that can make the scary bits easier to handle -- humor. The child characters are wonderfully edgy and human, but the magical creatures that get the most screen time are grossly ugly and threatening, thanks to digital effects -- slobbering, hard-charging goblins, ogres, trolls and a serpent. The more benign and beautiful sprites and sylphs, which morph gorgeously from dandelion fuzz into their magical selves, don't get enough screen time to lighten the scary bits.
Helen Grace (Mary-Louise Parker) moves with her twin boys Jared and Simon (both played by Freddie Highmore) and her teen daughter Mallory (Sarah Bolger) to a Victorian house that belonged to an early 20th-century ancestor, eccentric naturalist Arthur Spiderwick (David Strathairn), whom we meet in a prologue. Simon is a mild kid, but his twin Jared, whose temper often flairs into destruction of property, sulks and fumes about the move and about their father's absence (hint of a parental break-up). Jared eventually discovers a secret attic where Arthur Spiderwick compiled his "Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You." He opens the book, and its protector, a tiny rhyme-talking brownie named Thimbletack (voice of Martin Short), materializes. In an echo of Jared's temper, Thimbletack goes into burbling rages whenever he's upset. Because Jared opens the book, he and his siblings are pulled into the fairy realm, where they learn that an ogre named Mulgarath (Nick Nolte) and his army of goblins will kill them to get the Field Guide. A pignosed, bird-munching hobgoblin named Hogsqueal (Seth Rogen) helps the kids fight Mulgarath. When Hogsqueal spits in their faces (gross!) they can see into the fairy world without using the doughnut-shaped "seeing stone" Thimbletack gave them. The kids are chased by goblins, the ogre and a huge troll. They eventually find Spiderwick's now-elderly daughter, Aunt Lucinda (Joan Plowright), to ask how to protect themselves from this magical world gone wild.
The violence with goblins and ogre involves slashing, swordplay and scary chases. The goblins' blood is green. The kids get bloody gashes in their arms at one point. There is a verbal reference to suicide and Aunt Lucinda's lifelong institutionalization for mental illness because of her belief in the faerie creatures. The final battle between the kids and Mulgarath and his minions gets very messy -- lots of green goblin blood.
P.S. FOR KIDS: Thinking about a magical world that exists right next to our "real world" is a fun idea. Another good movie about kids who discover fairy creatures in their backyard is called "FairyTale: A True Story" (PG, 1997). It's about two English girls around 1917 (during World War I) who take a picture of a magical creature in their garden, and how the world reacts to it.
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BEYOND THE RATINGS GAME
-- OK FOR KIDS 6 AND OLDER:
"Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour" PG -- The close-ups of ecstatic little girls in the audience during this cotton-candy concert spectacle crystallize the love that tweens -- and girls either side of them in age -- have for singer/actress Miley Cyrus and her Disney Channel persona, a teen with a secret life as pop star Hannah Montana. Shot in digital 3-D (guitar picks and fans' waving arms really jump out at you), the movie showcases Cyrus singing and dancing as Hannah Montana, then as herself. Kids will love the backstage "reality" moments. The costumes are sparkly but not revealing, nor is Cyrus overaccessorized. The cheerleaderish dancing only gets mildly provocative during a tango. The whole thing amounts to a big promotional music video, but for kids it's 74 minutes of harmless fun.
-- OK FOR KIDS 10 AND OLDER:
"The Spiderwick Chronicles" PG (NEW) -- The idea of kids visiting fairy realms is exciting, but this film (adapted from books by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black) only captures some of the magic. It may be a scary experience for kids under 10. "The Spiderwick Chronicles" runs low on a key ingredient that can make the scary bits easier to take -- humor. The child characters are wonderfully human and the ending quite touching, but in-between, the magical creatures we see most often are gross, ugly and threatening -- slobbering, hard-charging goblins, ogres, and trolls. The beautiful sprites and sylphs that live in the trees and blossoms in the fairy world don't hang around long enough to lighten the mood. Young Jared (Freddie Highmore) moves with his twin brother Simon (also Highmore), his teen sister (Sarah Bolger) and their mom (Mary-Louise Parker) into an old house inherited from an ancestor, Arthur Spiderwick (David Strathairn in a prologue). Jared has anger issues and is furious about the move and that their dad didn't come (hints of parental abandonment). Then he discovers Arthur Spiderwick's "Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You." A tiny brownie, Thimbletack (voice of Martin Short), appears, furious (he, too, has anger issues) that the old book has been opened. Soon the ogre Mulgarath (Nick Nolte) and his goblin army come after Jared and his family. Hogsqueal (Seth Rogen), a bird-eating hobgoblin, helps the kids, spitting into their eyes (gross!) so they can see into the fairy sphere without using the doughnut-shaped "seeing stone." Violence involves swordplay and scary chases. The final battle gets very messy -- lots of green goblin blood. The kids also get gashes in their arms.)
-- PG-13's OF VARYING INTENSITY:
"Step Up 2 the Streets" (NEW) -- A script steeped in cliches and dance sequences that only occasionally catch fire make this sequel to the 2006 teen dance film "Step Up" (PG-13) an uninspiring event. The Canadian step dance film "How She Move" (PG-13) is still in theaters and is far more exuberant. In "Step Up 2 the Streets" Briana Evigan plays Andie, a motherless teen who cuts school and step dances with a street crew in inner-city Baltimore. Her frustrated guardian threatens to send Andie to relatives in Texas if she doesn't shape up, so she auditions for the (fictionalized) Maryland School of the Arts and is accepted. She finds the ballet-focused discipline tough. Then she forms an alliance with the star dancer (Robert Hoffman). Along with the class nerd (Adam G. Sevani), they form a team to go against Andie's old dance crew in a street competition. Some supporting characters are fun, and the choreography is occasionally quite clever, but the film goes nowhere. And the African-American characters are inexcusably stereotyped. There is mild fighting, implied drinking, rare sexually suggestive dance moves and verbal sexual innuendo, occasional mild profanity. OK for most teens.
"Jumper" (NEW) -- Perhaps it was once intended a unique take on a superhero, but "Jumper" is a mess, its moral and scientific themes drowned out amid special effects and narrative chaos. Hayden Christensen plays David Rice, who discovered as a teen (played by Max Thieriot in a long prologue) that he can "teleport" himself out of a near-drowning situation. He uses his special power to escape an unhappy life, skating through the space-time continuum to the Pyramids or anywhere else in the blink of an eye. He raids bank vaults and asks in voice-over "What would you have done?" The moral question intrigues, but once David is an adult (Christensen), "Jumper" becomes a boring old chase film. He lives a life of selfish luxury, until Roland (Samuel L. Jackson in bright white hair) appears.
Roland's cult believes teleporters break God's law and must die. The chase grows complicated after David reconnects with a childhood sweetheart (Rachel Bilson) unaware of his powers. At the Roman Coliseum he meets another teleporter, (Jamie Bell), and they take on Roland's minions. One stabbing is bloodless but quite intense. The rest of the violence is nongraphic. There is a pre-sexual situation with kissing and pulling off of outer garments, other mild sexual innuendo, mild profanity, drinking and toilet humor. OK for most teens.
"Fool's Gold" -- Reflecting its title, this romantic adventure comedy feels artificial, with a torturously contrived plot and co-stars (Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson) who exhibit little screen chemistry. McConaughey, ever shirtless, plays a reckless treasure hunter who gets on the wrong side of a violent rap star (Kevin Hart) and his goons (Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Brian Hooks) when he hunts for treasure off their Caribbean island. His scholarly wife (Hudson) is about to divorce him when she gets drawn into his dilemma, along with the millionaire (Donald Sutherland) on whose yacht she works and his party-girl daughter (Alexis Dziena). Not quite for middle-schoolers, the movie contains a lot of mayhem, some of it comic -- gunfire, fighting, some blood -- as well as profanity, crude language, brief toplessness, much mild sexual innuendo, scenes that imply sexual situations out of camera range, and drinking. Its one useful message is that girls shouldn't play dumb to get attention.
"Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins" -- The jokes are broad and more than occasionally raunchy, and the story is cliched, but this movie is still a tonic, full of boisterous laughs and genuine humanity, embodied in a cast of expert comic actors. Martin Lawrence plays a famous TV shrink who goes home to Georgia with his trophy fiancee (Joy Bryant) and neglected young son (Damani Roberts). There he finds that his stern father (James Earl Jones), outsize siblings (Michael Clarke Duncan and Mo'Nique), cousins (Mike Epps and Cedric the Entertainer) and childhood sweetheart (Nicole Ari Parker) all think he's a tad too full of himself. The movie touches on withheld parental affection and childhood bullying, too. It is an iffy choice for middle-schoolers, with much verbal and visual sexual innuendo, profane dialogue, crude sexual slang, a few racial slurs, and implied nudity.
"The Eye" -- In this tame thriller, Jessica Alba plays (unconvincingly) a blind concert violinist who gets an eye transplant and starts to see nightmarish images of people at the moment of their demise and the shadowy demon that pulls the spirits from dead bodies. Her eye specialist (Alessandro Nivola) assumes it's the stress of regaining her sight. Adapted from a Hong Kong film, "The Eye" uses imaginative imagery, yet it lacks true eeriness. There are implied suicides, subplots about a terminally ill child and a child killed by an abusive father, images of people perishing in fires or explosions, a decaying face, bloodied eyes. There is subtly implied nudity, but no sexual content. OK for teens.
"Over Her Dead Body" -- This ghost story/romantic comedy stays afloat despite a sitcomish premise, thanks to the comic panache of co-stars Paul Rudd and Lake Bell, plus Jason Biggs in a supporting role. Eva Longoria Parker, in a one-note star turn, plays a bossy bride-to-be who gets beaned by an ice sculpture on her wedding day and lands, dead and unwed, in limbo. A year later, her grieving fiance (Rudd) goes to a "psychic-slash-caterer" (Bell) in hopes she'll contact his late intended. Instead, the psychic falls for him, so the jealous dead fiancee haunts her. The film has low-level profanity, muted sexual innuendo, sexual slang, gay jokes, a clothed comic bedroom scene, and implied toplessness. Dog lovers may cringe at a bit in which vet techs drop an overweight dog, though thuds and yelps are mostly off-camera. For teens into character comedy and romantic tales.
"27 Dresses" -- Co-stars Katherine Heigl and James Marsden lend starry fizz to this romantic comedy, tempering its often cringe-inducing view of modern womanhood. Heigl plays Jane, a perennial bridesmaid with a closetful of 27 hideous dresses to prove it. Marsden plays a cynical wedding columnist fascinated by her story. Even worse, Jane's vixenish younger sister (Malin Akerman) snares Jane's boss (Edward Burns), whom Jane not-so-secretly loves. The film includes rude sexual innuendo and slang, an implied sexual situation, occasional strong profanity, drinking, and toilet humor. It is less appropriate for middle-schoolers, but at least it shows the foolishness of using deception to win someone's heart.
-- AN R:
"Rambo" -- Sylvester Stallone directed and stars in an excessively violent follow-up to the "Rambo" films of the 1980s (all R's). It is formulaic and predictable, yet still pretty gripping. Stallone's ex-Green Beret survivalist persona is now a snake wrangler in the jungles of Thailand, barely verbal as ever. When missionaries ask him to take them upriver into Burma to help peasants brutalized by Burmese soldiers, he grudgingly obliges, then must go back to rescue them in a bloody battle. The film depicts people, including children, blown apart by weapons fire and land mines, as well as stabbings, beheadings and implications about raping female hostages. The profanity is very strong. Not for under-17s.
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