THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS Review

Fellow movie-goers: A lot of fun, Blanchett and Black are perfect for this movie.
9 Plot: Great story, cool concept.
9 Acting: Black and Blanchett are perfect together.
8 Directing: Eli Roth does a great job with his first family film.
10 Cinematography: Fun shots, and great use of CGI.
8 Pacing: The story and characters unfold rather nicely.
8.8

Here’s the premise:  Lewis Barnavelt (Owen Vaccaro), after losing his parents, is sent to Michigan to live with his uncle Jonathan (Jack Black.) He discovers his uncle is a warlock, and enters a world of magic and sorcery. But this power is not limited to good people: Lewis learns of Isaac Izard (Kyle MacLachlan), an evil wizard who wanted to cause the Apocalypse so that he could see what happened afterwards. To do this, he constructed a magical clock with black magic; as long as it exists it will keep ticking, counting down to doomsday. He died before he could finish the clock, but he hid the clock in his house, where Uncle Jonathan now lives. Now Lewis and Jonathan must find the clock before it’s too late, and before Isaac’s wife, Selena, gets to it.

Absolutely a fun movie; especially with Jack Black and Kate Blanchett, who supplied the majority of the comic relief. The movie has a feel of Goosebumps while carving out a name of its own. The story unfolds rather well; with the mystery of the clock being revealed a piece at a time. The character development was great and like the clock, began to reveal the layers of each character a little at a time.

The appearance of villain Issac Izard worked but I would have liked to see MacLachlan have more screen time to show his evilness. The CGI was great in this movie, made it feel so much like a kid’s movie from the over the top CGI that was used.

This is a great movie to take the family to, but it may be a little intense for the little bitty ones, but perfect the older kids and teens, as well as adults.

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