Lewis Barnavelt a young orphan is set to live with his Uncle Jonathan and had no idea the magical world he was about to enter and sets out to help him and Mrs. Zimmerman find the clock that is built within the walls of the house.
In all honesty other than seeing the trailer I didn't have any background around the book this is based on. But anything with Cate Blanchett and Jack Black in I think is worth watching. So happily I decided to see this at the weekend preview prior to its full release. I am also happy to say that I throughly enjoyed this film, it really had a fantastic balance of containing magic and likeable characters with plenty of special effects.
We cannot help but feel sorry for Lewis from the start, he is a little bit strange. He knows that and then being thrown in with his Uncle who means well but doesn't really understand how to raise a child. Starting a new school and trying very hard to make some new friends, which does create a very bad situation but I think he really does help to show what children will do to fit in. Trying to convince someone of something so they will like them, although really when you think about that even more it is something adults still do as well.
Mrs. Zimmerman has some troubles of her own as she is struggling to use her magic since some tragic events in her life. The friendship with Jonathan is hilarious as they call each other all different names and have a little battle which I felt gave them brilliant character development. Mixing Lewis in with them creates an even better balance as they become parent figures to him.
Isaac Izard is a man who had a bad past and had not long died. He had built a clock into the walls of the house and Jonathan spent his nights searching for where it was hidden. The arrival of Lewis is something that really does help and hinder all of this. As the house responds to him. The story has plenty of twists and turns to keep it interesting along with the special effects in and around the house pretty much reminded me of enjoying films like this as a kid.
Performance wise I thought Owen Vaccaro led the film very well and found him to be engaging and showing plenty of different emotions. Very impressive from the young actor and I think it is really going to help push his career forward. Jack Black is well you know how you would expect him to be and back on top form with this film, with his crazy style. Cate Blanchett offers the elegance and class impressing as always and showing that she really can take on any role in any type of film. I hope that this film gets plenty of people watching it as I throughly enjoyed it and thought it was a fantastic trip to the cinema!
