Faithful to the book, 'Spiderwick' comes alive

"THE SPIDERWICK Chronicles," which opens tomorrow, is a sturdy, family-friendly adaptation of the popular series of children's books by Holly Black.

Young readers have devoured these stories of transplanted city kids exploring a rural world of goblins and fairies, but the books are equally prized for their detailed Tony DiTerlizzi illustrations.

So the challenge for director Mark Waters is twofold - create computer-generated creatures that are new and cinematically alive, but also in line with the rigid expectations of a devoted following.

He's done that, and more - creating a movie that has its dark edges, but is overall crisper, lighter and more nimble than "The Golden Compass," whose effects at times overwhelmed its human components.

Waters ("Freaky Friday," "Mean Girls") understands teen/parent conflict and preserves the heart of this story by keeping the focus on turmoil inside the featured Grace family.

When her marriage falls apart, Helen Grace (Mary-Louise Parker) takes her three children to the country for a fresh start in the creaky mansion she inherits from a dotty relative (Joan Plowright).

The house is enchanted, or haunted, or both - fairies and other benign supernatural critters protect it, while an army of goblins and other beasts attempt to invade, looking for a book that will give them dominion over the entire magical realm.

The task of protecting the book falls to the Grace children - rebellious Jared and bookish Simon (both played by Freddie Highmore) and high-spirited Mallory (Sarah Bolger).

The story is nominally about whether a giant evil toad called Mulgrath (nicely voiced by Nick Nolte) will harm the children, and that's scary enough for younger kids. Waters knows that the real story, though, is about angry, wounded Jared, and whether he's prepared to accept the truth about his parents' marriage - a secret Mallory and her mother preserve at their own expense.

The director does a nice job of juggling and blending the movie's tricky tones and storylines, which could have gone badly wrong at any juncture. And he gives the story's fantastical characters a fresh movie life (Seth Rogen and Martin Short contribute voices) while maintaining allegiance to DiTerlizzi's original vision.

For the most part. The finale is altered so that the salvation of the children rests on the destruction of the book, giving the movie an odd, anti-knowledge theme - the all-powerful "field guide" is, after all, a scientific encyclopedia of the unseen supernatural world.

It would have been nice to find a way to please young readers without having them root for the destruction of a book. *

Produced by Larry J. Franco, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Albie Hecht, Karey Kirkpatrick and Julia Pistor, directed by Mark Waters, written by Karey Kirkpatrick, David Berenbaum and John Syles, music by James Horner, distributed by Paramount Pictures.