The House With a Clock in Its Walls

Jack Black (playing the uncle) and Cate Blanchett (as his best friend and partner in magic) are usually welcome screen presences, but they seem embarrassed and undirected here, and the less said about the child actors, the better.

I found my attention wandering.

I feel like Eli Roth kind of revitalized himself with this picture...I'd love to see what else he can do with this kind of film.

The book is a charmingly quaint, deeply eerie supernatural mystery about grief, necromancy, and the apocalypse. The movie version is a shrieking CGI carnival full of poop jokes and barfing pumpkins.

It works if all you're looking for is a movie you can take your children to see.

The problem that this has is that...Eli Roth wasn't the right person to be doing it.

Emerging from a preceding filmography of viciously abrasive and almost ceaselessly offensive films, The House with a Clock in Its Walls sees Roth re-examining his interest in genre cinema.

While the film is more focused on men than women (like the book), Jack Black and Cate Blanchett make a surprisingly compelling comedic team. While some of the jokes are pretty juvenile, the flights of fancy make this a spooky good time.

I did enjoy this movies despite its faults. I think it was a good first attempt at a non-R rated movie for Eli Roth...

Roth's work here is occasionally fun and not quite scary, and its genial characters divert our attention, though they don't leave a lasting impression.