This was Christy's pick after I made her watch the red-band trailer for Sinister. She demanded that we watch something happy. If you want a sugary, schmaltzy confection of a movie, this one is for you.The Grace family has just moved into their crazy great-aunt's old farmhouse. Jared (Freddie Highmore) is pissed off about moving because he'd rather go live with his dad. His twin Simon (also Freddie Highmore) and sister Mallory (Sarah Bolger) are more enthusiastic about the prospect. Jared's bad attitude is barely tolerated until he starts coming up with insane stories of fairies and goblins. See, Jared found an old dumbwaiter that took him to a sealed off room in the attic where he met a brownie named Thimbletack (Martin Short) and found a book written by the house's previous owner, Arthur Spiderwick (David Strathairn). The field guide to fairies details the hidden world around him and warns against ever letting the book fall into the hands of Mulgarath the ogre (Nick Nolte). Jared must convince his family to believe him before the ogre completely destroys their lives.
I had several issues with casting in this movie. For starters, Sarah Bolger was absolutely terrible. She was completely lifeless in the role. Freddie Highmore is not a bad child actor, but there was absolutely no reason for him to be cast as twins. It's just stupid. They could have cast identical twins or just written them to be fraternal twins that look similar. There have been worse adaptations. Mary Louise Parker and Andrew McCarthy are completely wasted in this movie. Parker seems like she's playing the same character from Weeds and McCarthy has about a minute total of screen time.
For a kid's movie, it's not terrible but it's not great either. I'd say skip it.
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