the house with a clock in its walls book review

He can be a fun actor, and he has done some fun jobs in kids flicks before, (just check out 2015’s “Goosebumps.”) It’s a mild performance at best without even Black’s usual blend of expressional and physical comedy.

It’s both jarring and confusing.īlack doesn’t seem to be taking the job too seriously either. Suljic also gets a raw deal as his character flips so suddenly from nice guy to bully right in the middle of the second act. Young actors have always had the hardest job, and its rare you’ll find a real exceptional performance, (If you’re curious for one, watch Hailee Steinfeld performance as Mattie Ross in the 2010 remake of “True Grit”.) The big problem is he and other leading kids such as Sunny Suljic, playing the young, athletic Tarby Corrigan, don’t have a good script to work from. Vaccaro does a fine, if standard job as the young kid trying to fit in to the conformities of a new town. Though reluctant, Jonathan agrees to teach young Lewis magic, all the while a clock ticks constantly behind the house’s walls, counting down to something, and both Jonathan and Zimmerman know it can’t be anything good. Of course, not all is as it seems, and Lewis quickly learns that both Jonathan and Zimmerman are Warlock and Witch. The elder Barnavelt spends most of his time with fellow eccentric Florence Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett) who quips regularly with Jonathan, though barely concealing a deep friendship. He goes to live with his uncle Jonathan Barnavelt (Jack Black), an eccentric and near-recluse who lives in a house that contains any number of secrets. Our movie opens with young Lewis Barnavelt (Owen Vaccaro) taking the Greyhound bus to a new town after his mother and father have died in a car accident. Sad to say it doesn’t work, and not so much because the material is rotten but because the tropes have become stale. It must have seemed a cinch to bring it to theaters. This book is a precursor to all the Harry Potters and Hunger Games that line kids’ bookcases to this day. It seems we’re at the point that Hollywood is looking back in time to “The House with a Clock in its Walls,” a book by John Bellairs written in 1973. It’s not strange then that Hollywood has since been pushing out more and more films based off young adult literature, from “The Hunger Games,” to “Maze Runner,” “A Wrinkle in Time,” and on and on. Those novels, written by J.K Rowling, were already a sensation before the whole thing exploded in popularity with a near decade of new movies.Ĭate Blanchett, Owen Vaccaro and Jack Black in a scene from the film.

Us youngins can still remember when the first “Harry Potter” movie jumped so gracefully from book to the big screen.

The house with a clock in its walls book review