The Spiderwick Chronicles

This series does not compare to the 2008 film. If you are expecting a fantasy show filled with faeries and creatures, you'll be disappointed. The creatures we do see spend majority of their time in human form or invisible. It feels more like a teen drama than any sort of fantasy adventure. I can count on one hand how many creatures we saw, and all were fleeting.

This series introduces two boys, Jared (Lyon Daniels) and his brother Simon (Noah Cottrell), who are opposites of each other. Jared is rebellious and gets into trouble, while Simon does what he is told. The premise is the Grace family moves to Michigan to take Jared to the same doctor who is treating their aunt, worried that Jared might be going down the same path as "crazy Aunt Lucinda" (even though there has been apparently no progress for her in the last 40 years). Unfortunately for them, Mulgarath, played by Christian Slater, assumes the doctor's identity. Together with his sidekick Calliope (Alyvia Alyn Lind), seek to bring death to the entire town of Henson, MI and beyond.

Christian Slater really carries this entire series on his back. His performance was great and reminded me a bit of Mr. Robot. The other characters feel awkward and unnatural at times, or downright inconsistent. The fantasy elements also seem inconsistent or changing to fit the narrative. For example, Calliope can shape shift.. but sometimes she knows who and sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes it's a perfect copy and other times it's not. This doesn't make sense with the lore given to the character.

Throughout the series, the entire cast attempts to convince Jared he is crazy and creatures are not real. This is despite each of them witnessing creatures themselves multiple times. It also feels there are no consequences for any of their actions. They either forget in the next scene or push it under the rug and not mention it again. Except for in flashbacks, which felt unnecessary and disjointed. The whole series probably could have been avoided if the Grace family actually listened to each other instead of always being terrible. I know some of this are aspects of their characters, but this dialed it up to 11. Sometimes the characters want to help Jared defeat Mulgarath, other times they don't believe anything Jared says. This back and forth was frustrating for the viewer because none of the characters had any consistency.

The anticlimactic ending to this series sums up how I felt during each episode, always anticipating something exciting to happen only to be met with more monotony.

There is also the issue of the not-so-subtle propaganda and messages throughout the series. The great Mulgarath wants to destroy the town because of... single use plastics? The "return to nature" fallacy seemed flimsy at best and broke the immersion whenever they started talking of their environmental goals.

Ultimately I feel this series missed its mark. Spiderwick is great because of all the fantasy and creatures and lore within the Spiderwick field guide. In this series we get a couple of pages and use them for comedic moments. This didn't even scratch the surface of the Spiderwick universe and felt more like family drama. Hopefully any future seasons will pivot to focus much more heavily on the fantasy aspect.

8 epsiodes, 8 hrs to develope better than the orginal that was well done in 90 min. When you cannot tell a solid story in 8 hrs with the foundation already laid out, time to call it quits. And do we need to throw in every issue of todays world and make the main character another villain. Cause that is what Jared was. Far too much emphasis in mebtal health. We get it. And the towns people reaction after what happebed to them! Really? Why did we hardly see thimbletack? And his design was horrible as well as the rest of the CGI? Roku if you are reading this, no season 2 unless you switch writers and spend some xtra money on the effects and the fairy world we are all looking forward to. Too.

Im sick and tired of remakes and all that bull First you cant tell me it's good when Ive seen the original movie and read the books STOP RUINING CHILDHOOD THINGS Let alone no offense but this whole culture appropriation thing It's clear in the stories they're not people of color Dont get me wrong its not that I have a problem with it its more so it feels like they're not appreciated don't make remakes and make a whole new movie something that is not some sloppy second's remake Its like these writers dont have the time of day to give people of color there own movie something fresh something new.

The ONE & ONLY redeeming aspect of this entire fiasco is Christian Slater's devastating performance, worthy of a real cast, crew, writers, producers and directors. If the last episode would have shown us that there was science fiction involved, and Slater had been transported into a D-list production from an A-list one, THAT would have felt far more believable. OK, actually, the actress who played Lucinda was pretty charming, as well, so who's to say how she might have done with adult-written dialog? The remaining cast could have been good; it's hard to say - the material they had to work with was so atrocious, repetitive and grating, it is almost impossible to watch. I did watch the whole thing - and, unfortunately, there is zero character development. So a character who says an annoying thing in the first episode will continue to spout the same time of thing throughout all of the whole 8 episodes - bar none. There's no relief from a gorgeous CGI fairy world, bc the producers largely felt it wasn't needed in this production. So you have Slater, the actress who played Lucinda, portaled into the worst television fantasy series to have been produced in decades. Watch the 2008 film or Willow or House of the Dragon or pretty much ANYTHING else, bc this is a dumpster fire.

Everyone who played a teenager were super annoying, especially the ones that played the twins and the sister. Show reminds me a bit of Grimm, but Grimm was better. I can see why Disney passed up on this show. If theres a Season 2, i'd be surprised. Christian Slater was good as a baddie, but needed more witches of eastwick jack nicholson type acting.

The acting was all over the place. The plot holes also all over the place. I also felt these kids kept repeating themselves in every episode. I watched the show only cause i was already invested. We'll see. I gave it a 6 out of 10 cause there were moments that caught my attention.