After having separated from her husband, Helen Grace (Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds), daughter Mallory (Sarah Bolger) and twin sons Jaren and Simon (Freddie Highmore, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) have to move to Helen's aunt's home in the country because they can no longer afford New York's high price tag. Moving into the broken-down and creepy house is bad enough, but add to that the fact that old Aunt Lucy was sent away to the nuthouse and you have a recipe for both disaster and depression. Jared, who is giving mom the silent treatment because he blames her for dad's departure, seems to get into trouble easily, while his twin Simon hates conflict and will do anything to avoid it. Mallory has no problem with conflict, however, and engages in verbal and physical sparring with her brother at length. Did I mention Mallory is also a fencer?
After hearing a noise in the wall and discovering a dumb waiter that had been covered over, along with a nest including mom's missing keys, Mallory's missing fencing medal and a strange skeleton key bearing the letter "S", Jared is blamed for the mess and has to clean it up. Instead, he rides the dumb waiter and finds a room that had been covered over, one filled with all sorts of odd things. He uses the key to unlock a chest with the same "S" and finds a book with a note warning against opening it. Of course, he opens it. Soon, something is in the room with him and doesn't want him there, so he flees to the safety of his room. Mysterious things continue to happen, including a weird attack on Mallory and Jared's pet mice being released. As he hides within a foot locker and reads the book, some strange things come to light.
He realizes that Arthur Spiderwick, his great-great uncle, had compiled this field guide to fantastic creatures, both good and evil, all around us. He manages to calm the house brownie down by plying him with honey and befriends the small creature. Thimbletack (Martin Short) was a good friend to Arthur Spiderwick and will stop at nothing to protect the book which is being sought by the head goblin, Mulgrath (Nick Nolte). Since Jared opened the book, Mulgrath has been alerted to its existence once again and begins relentlessly pursuing it. The kids find that they need to work together and with the help of oddball hobgoblin Hogsqueal (Seth Rogen), they launch a plan to protect their family and destroy the book by finding crazy Aunt Lucy, who hopefully has some answers.
Watching this film on Blu-ray is simply spectacular. Not to slight the DVD version, because I actually watched both to compare and the DVD looks pretty sweet as well, but the Blu-ray is more crisp and when you consider the various special effects, it just looks gorgeous on Blu-ray. It seemed like they must have had some money left over after completing the film, because the ending credits alone are incredible. There are a host of special features included on this disc, including featurettes on the story itself and how they brought it to its movie form, deleted scenes, the cast, the making-of Spiderwick and much more. If you enjoy fantasy movies, this is one you won't want to miss. It has a great cast, an excellent story and some really sweet special effects, plus a great ending! This is one to buy and not simply to rent. The kids will watch it over and over. If you have a high-def set-up and a Blu-ray player, definitely spend the extra few bucks to get the prettier version of the two. Highly recommended.
