The House with a Clock in its Walls - 2 1/2 smiles

"The House with a Clock in its Walls," a children's movie for the under 10 crowd, is an odd choice for gore-master Eli Roth, the director of hard R films like Hostel, Knock Knock, Inglorious Basterds and the remake of Death Wish last year. However, there are things he gets right and a few that create tonal problems with the overall film. The highlight of the movie is pairing Jack Black and Cate Blanchett as friends whose insulting banter toward each other create genuine laughter and casting Owen Vaccaro as the oddball Lewis, who is desperately lonely and dangerously curious. Overall, the movie's sense of atmosphere is weak. The house lacks the kind of mystical aspect that should inspire wonder. Sure, there's an armchair that acts like a puppy, a stained glass window that changes its images and the ticking that resonates throughout the building in the middle of the night. But for a young boy's first exposure to magic, it's all pretty pedestrian. And the transition between fairly benign events to menacing, end-of-the-world destruction is too abrupt.

The three mail characters are an orphan, a warlock and a good witch. Jonathan Barnavelt (Black) invites his young nephew Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) to live with him after the boy's parents are killed in a car crash. Jonathan is a recluse of sorts, his only friend is his sharp-tongued compatriot of many years, Florence Zimmerman (Blanchett), whose prodigious magical powers have faded. Jonathan's house once belonged to the black wizard Isaac Izard (Kyle MacLachlan) and his wife, Selena (Renee Elise Goldsberry), but the two died when an experiment to create a doomsday clock went wrong. Since then, Jonathan has been working to find that clock. He happily welcomes Lewis, informing him that there is only one rule: the contents of a locked cabinet must not be disturbed under any circumstances. Of course, as soon as he says that, you know what's going to happen. "The House with a Clock in its Walls" is an adequate Halloween treat for children who enjoy scary movies that don't go too far over the top. It's a straightforward story, lacking complexity, more for children than adults.