The rest of the film is populated with CGI characters with perfectly cast actors providing their voices. Martin Short plays ThimbleTack, the gentle Brownie that turns into a hot-tempered ‘Boggart’ when he doesn’t get his honey, and his penchant for playing overtly stressed-out characters is no different here. Also playing one of the good guys is Seth Rogan as Hogsqueal the Hobgoblin. Typical of anything he does, Hogsqueal is hilarious as the pig/bat/monkey fusion with serious attention deficit disorders. The bad guys are just as impressive with Nick Nolte playing the evil Mulgrath and Ron Pearlman in an uncredited role, voicing the henchman Redcap, leader of the goblins.

As with most genre films of today, this one places its main title sequence at the end of the film. This is always a hindrance when you end up spending the entire time trying to figure out “who’s playing that voice?” but in this case it’s a testament to the technical crew when you end up being impressed by what you see without knowing (ahead of time) that some huge names are responsible. In this case, we have the recently accomplished director Mark Waters (Mean Girls, Freaky Friday (2003)), cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Black Stallion, The Passion), and special creature effects by Phil Tippet (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back). These are some pretty impressive credentials and their work on Spiderwick sets it apart from the rest of the children’s films being made right now. The film is shot beautifully and the creatures look awesome, especially Mulgrath once he shows his real face (they don’t cater to the easily frightened with this guy). It also helps that Nickelodeon Movies produced this film, meaning kids can say “hell” and mass amounts of phlegmy substances will be flown.

All of this makes for a great Blu-Ray viewing experience as pretty much anything that relies on CGI effects is going to be infinitely better when viewed in high definition. Needless to say, Spiderwick’s Blu-ray is a definite improvement over its SD release. Deschanel’s striking photography compliments the digital effects on display and both are rendered beautifully in HD. He doesn’t fill the screen with overtly saturated colors instead relying on a natural palette, making it harder to toss it all off as being “done by a computer”. Black levels are pitch perfect (Mulgrath’s crow comes to mind) and there isn’t a single grain to be found. If there is anything to complain about, it might be that it suffers the same fate as most HD transfers in that it’s got an overall darkness that is most likely the result of the studio wanting to make sure the consumer doesn’t confuse intentional film grain as film noise. This is unfortunately a practice that will continue until everyone realizes that HD doesn’t mean “without grain.”

Its audio, here in Dolby 5.1 TrueHD is a little on the soft side at times. I would assume this is because it’s a children’s film though I hardly doubt they kept that in mind when creating Mulgrath so why can’t his scenes be equally as powerful in this department? The rest of the film sounds fine and the score by James Horner is nicely enhanced, though it does sound an awful lot like his Something Wicked This Way Comes (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing).