Students take on the ogres of Spiderwick

By C.S. Morrissey
Special to The B.C. Catholic

The B.C. Catholic sent Sinora Barboza and Anthony de Guzman out on a "movie night" and they saw the movie The Spiderwick Chronicles on opening weekend. Sinora and Anthony are both students at Redeemer Pacific College learning about their Catholic faith.

Anthony: This is a must-see movie for viewers who love endless action. Its action really was endless.

Sinora: It's about the adventures of a young family after they move onto the abandoned Spiderwick estate.

Anthony: It's like the Chronicles of Narnia coming out of the closet into an average American town.

Sinora: It's a mixture of fantasy, adventure, and the challenges of family relationships.

Anthony: The moral of the movie was that sometimes you can be caught up with something you discover, only to realize that what you have discovered can be dangerous and affect the people whom you love.

Sinora: The children teach important lessons of trust, collaboration, persistence amidst despair, belief in oneself, and love. We watch them learn that they must rely on each other if they are to save themselves and the secret world they have discovered from destruction.

Anthony: What about the flow of the movie? If the Grace children were able to enter and escape the dimension that Spiderwick was caught in through his fantasy pet Griffith, why did Spiderwick never try to escape?

Sinora: It is an interesting and unique movie that lets your imagination run wild.

Anthony: The acting was well done. There were even well known actors who took on small roles, such as Martin Short and Joan Plowright, and I didn't realize that Freddie Highmore was playing both brother parts until the end of the movie.

Sinora: The only negative aspect I found to this movie was that there were a few places where characters take the Lord's name in vain, or curse. Overall, however, it is a nice film to watch as a family, and I recommend it especially for young kids with wild imaginations.

Anthony: I recommend it to viewers over the age of 12, since the violence may scare young children.

In his message for the January 1 World Day of Peace, Pope Benedict XVI noted:

"The natural family, as an intimate communion of life and love based on marriage between a man and a woman, constitutes the primary place of humanization for the person and society, and a cradle of life and love. The family is therefore rightly defined as the first natural society, a divine institution that stands at the foundation of life of the human person as the prototype of every social order."

"Indeed, in a healthy family life we experience some of the fundamental elements of peace: justice and love between brothers and sisters, the role of authority expressed by parents, loving concern for the members who are weaker because of youth, sickness, or old age, mutual help in the necessities of life, and readiness to accept others and, if necessary, to forgive them. For this reason, the family is the first and indispensable teacher of peace."

Sinora and Anthony both agree that the best family movies are built on these truths about the family, society, and peace.

Chris Morrissey is an Assistant Professor of Medieval Latin Philosophy at Redeemer Pacific College.