The Spiderwick Chronicles, Jumper and Definitely, Maybe: Movie Reviews (2008)

So, here’s some atonement — a rundown of three films available everywhere.



First up is Mark Waters’ "The Spiderwick Chronicles," which is based on Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black’s popular series of books. Karey Kirkpatrick, David Berenbaum and John Sayles are credited with the screenplay, but it’s likely that they don’t mention it. In spite of the talent on display here, the result is an uneven effort, to say the least.

Freddie Highmore plays two characters, twins Jared and Simon, with Jared’s bold combativeness in stark contrast to Simon’s more, shall we say, delicate demeanor. Sarah Bolger is their older sister Mallory, who conveniently knows her way around a sword, and Mary-Louise Parker is their recently divorced mother, who has left New York and moved them all into one mother of a haunted house far away in the country.

to get its hands on that book for reasons best notNaturally, that house is bulging with mysteries and problems, most of which are unleashed when Jared finds an ancient-looking book written by Arthur Spiderwick (David Strathairn) and opens it in spite of warnings not to do so. When he does, a wealth of computer-generated freaks and monsters spring forth, with one towering, fearless ogre (Nick Nolte) especially determined revealed here.

"Spiderwick" is another in a long line of children’s books translated for the big screen, and that’s part of its problem. If you’re going to compete in an arena already owned by the "Harry Potter" and "Narnia" franchises, you’d better enter that fray determined to show you can compete favorably with them. And that’s where "Spiderwick" runs into trouble. While it earns points for being genuinely scary and having good special effects, the film isn’t nearly as compelling as its competition, the tale bogs down in its hectic switch from fantasy to reality, and there’s the sense that it might only be here to cash in.



Next up is Doug Liman’s sci-fi thriller "Jumper," a complicated mess that doesn’t offer audiences a single challenge beyond the very real challenge of getting through it.

In the film, Hayden Christensen is David Rice, a jumper whose powers of teleportation are under attack by a Paladin named Roland (Samuel L. Jackson, bleached, bellowing, boring), who is trying to kill David and other jumpers as they leap about the world while David also tries to rescue his girlfriend back in Ann Arbor, Mich.

If Ann Arbor sounds like a comedown considering all the exotic locales the movie visits — from Egypt to Prague, Japan to New York and beyond — it is, for sure, but at least it’s keeping with the movie’s ongoing run of disappointments.

With the exception of Jamie Bell as a fellow jumper (he has the sort of presence Christensen must envy), everything in this exhausting movie goes wrong, which is curious since Liman directed the excellent first "Bourne" movie. And yet here, he puts the squeeze of stupidity on us right from the start. Unless you’re willing to wade through the film’s embarrassing plot holes or are seeking one of the season’s bigger unintended comedies, skip "Jumper." It’s an abstract junker — and in an adolescent way.



But don’t miss Adam Brooks’ "Definitely, Maybe," which is one of the better romantic comedies to come along in awhile. It’s a film that at once embraces formula and, in critical scenes, dismisses it all together. It’s Brooks’ eagerness to try different approaches to the otherwise rote material that gives his movie its offbeat edge and which keeps it rooted in some semblance of reality.

Early in the film, Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds in a fine performance) is asked a few difficult questions by his inquisitive 10-year-old daughter, Maya (Abigail Breslin). Some of those questions involve sex, which she’s learning about at school, and another involves the reason Will is divorcing Maya’s mother.

That question proves to be the land mine.

Since we don’t know who the mother is, what ensues is a trip back in time to 1992 to find out. There, we see a younger Will leaving his girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks) to work on the Clinton campaign and apparently, when their relationship fizzles in New York, to enjoy his share of women. Those women include an office worker played by Isla Fisher and a journalist played by Rachel Weisz, two fine actresses who join Banks in playing their roles very differently and very well.

It is, in fact, a virtue of the film that none of the women come off as types. Like Will himself, sometimes we like them, sometimes we don’t, which makes for a richer experience all around. Manipulation is at work in this movie — hello, Breslin! — but it doesn’t suffocate you because Brooks increasingly finds ways to deepen his characters, including one played by Kevin Kline, who is so on and so in line with what Brooks is trying to achieve here, he nearly steals the show.

Grades: "Spiderwick": C+; "Jumper": D; "Definitely": B+

View the video review here.