[star rating=”2.5″] THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS. Directed by Eli Roth, with Jack Black, Cate Blanchett and Owen Vaccaro. An Eric Kripke screenplay. A John Bellairs novel.
MEGAN FURNISS reviews
Eli Roth is known for the horror genre, but The House with a Clock in its Walls is kid-friendly and tagged as comedy, family and fantasy.
I was expecting a good dose of slightly scary, very magical and tons of fabulous fun and styling, but this film about a young orphan Lewis who goes to live with his strange uncle Jonathan (Jack Black) in an even stranger house is the least exciting and fun movie I have seen in a while – even though the mission is to find the clock that will destroy the entire universe.
This movie should have been fun. The story, while a little inconsistent, could have been a delicious one. The sad orphan, the wacky uncle and his friend Florence, the challenges of loneliness at a new school, the weird and magical house, complete with pet chair and animated topiary lion, the scary and evil and tortured magician back from the dead.
All the elements were there for it to be enjoyable at the very least, but I squirmed with impatience before the first 10 minutes were up. Here’s why.
Long stares, long shots, long scenes
This movie is seriously slow. Long stares, long shots, long scenes. The set and styling are gorgeous, but nothing really happens, or when it does it isn’t really justified. Cate Blanchett looks amazing and is probably the most interesting person in the movie, but her insertion into the plot doesn’t make sense and she is a clumsy add on with a sad story of her own thrown into the mix.
Jack Black has never ever been this unfunny. I don’t know what he is trying to do, but he is, for the first time ever, totally, relentlessly boring. The one or two gags are repeated more than once, sometimes even three or four times, and even the scary moments are flaccid and somehow without tension.
And the movie borrows horribly from others – magic from Harry Potter, bits of story and character from Lemony Snicket, the house from Haunted House, styling from Tim Burton.
The House with a Clock in its Walls has had all the life and naughtiness, silliness, fun and magic sucked out of it, and it is a dreary movie with a few fun moments. I really only liked the exploding pumpkins.
What: The House with a Clock in its Walls review
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