The House with a Clock in Its Walls - Okay

Starring: Jack Black, Cate Blanchett, Owen Vaccaro
Director: Eli Roth
Runtime: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Based on the novel by John Bellairs
Comedy | Family | Fantasy | 2018

This movie strictly reminds me of Goosebumps. I’m not sure whether it is because Jack Black is the main adult character, or if it was just filmed similarly, but still they are super similar in my opinion. This particular movie is based on a novel of the same name, written by John Bellairs. It tells a story of magic. A young boy, Lewis (played by Owen Vaccaro), goes to live with his uncle Jonathan (Jack Black) where he starts to see and hear crazy, unimaginable things in the house. Come to find out that he and his uncle are warlocks. The house was, I’ll say hexed for lack of a better word, but an evil warlock and the family must fight to save themselves and the world from danger.

It all sounds interesting and exciting on paper, especially from a family film sense, but this movie wasn’t the greatest thing I’ve seen. It’s still better than A Wrinkle in Time I would say, but there’s not a whole lot to the plot line. I actually ended up falling asleep during the film and had to start over (this seems to be a growing habit, perhaps we should start watching better films?).

I can see why the producers wanted to make this novel into a movie, it’s got the perfect concepts to bring forth an audience of elementary schoolers with their parents (two-fer ticket prices right there), but it just wasn’t great. I’m going to give it an “okay” rating since it wasn’t terrible. I don’t think I would put this movie on my list of “family movies” for the future when I have a family of my own. (2.5/5).