Spiderwick is no match for Potter

The Spiderwick Chronicles, Directed by Mark Waters, Nationwide, PG

The major studio’s scattershot search for the formula for the new Harry Potter continues unabated, with the easily digested but distinctly unmemorable The Spiderwick Chronicles, a child’s-eye view of a family going through a divorce squashed between the pages of a fairy-story about an ogreish goblin king.

Freddie Highmore plays twin boys, Jared and Simon, who, along with older sister Mallory (Sarah Bolger) and ...