Where's Richard Donner when a kid from the 80s needs him?

One would think that the ability to have one actor play twins would have improved with technology. But Freddie Highmore seems pretty much incapable of playing anything believably, with or without technology. Where'd the boy from Finding Neverland go? Slap an American accent on a kid and boom, he's washed up. Sad really.

Seriously, I have to stop seeing these kind of movies. Most who know me know I have a weakness for kids movies of the sort that offer some adventurous plot, with the preteen outsiders being the only ones who can understand what's really going on (until the inevitable denouement where the adults can no longer deny the truth). I pine away hoping for a new Goonies, Explorers, D.A.R.Y.L., or Flight of the Navigator. While The Last Mimzy came pretty damn close to that implacable magic from the 1980s, most of the modern CGI-laden backpack sellers are way off the mark. Spiderwick Chronicles seems to be no exception. These movie-makers don't even know how to pace or get good performances, let alone get an audience to buy in to the fantasy adventure.

Even in the 21st century, people like Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro have set the bar pretty high. But movies like this or say, Stardust, don't even seem to be trying.