A part-time photographer’s uncle once said “With great power comes great responsibility.” In Hollywood studio terms this means “With lots of money comes no originality.”

Thus when a genre is successfully reinvented, like the Lord Of The Rings did with fantasy, studios will throw their wads of cash at the nearest fantasy book series hoping to squeeze more milky gold from the supple mass market teat.

Since the pitter patter of Hobbit feet was first heard, we’ve been treated to endless fantasy literary adaptations from the good - Harry Potter (Films 3-5), the bad - Chronicles of Narnia, and the scratch your eyes out its so damn ugly - Eragon. So it’s fair to say those furry-footed fucks have a lot to answer for!

We didn’t expect to enjoy The Spiderwick Chronicles and if we’re honest we only went to see it after seeing Seth Rogen’s name in the credits, whose gruff voice and bearish physique has had an effect on us that makes us feel uncomfortable inside. The experience though was enjoyable and had an almost nostalgic feel to the proceedings with a story that happily balances character drama with action and adventure more akin to what we grew up with than most of fantasy stories today that try to outdo the previous offering by enlarging the scope and action.  

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