This fantasy adventure culled from the books by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black is filled with creatures from the nether-world. Some of them are threatening but, since The Spiderwick Chronicles is clearly aimed at younger children, nothing untoward ever happens.

What we see in Mark Waters's film is attractive, colourful and slightly weird. Parents taking the kids will have a better time than with the recent Golden Compass, even if it doesn't match up to the triumphant Harry Potter series.

The story revolves around the three Grace children, Jared and his twin brother Simon (both played by Freddie Highmore), and their older sister, Mallory (Sarah Bolger).

They and their recently separated mother, Helen (Mary-Louise Parker), move into the isolated Spiderwick Estate, the former home of their great, great uncle, Arthur (David Strathairn). Creepy things start to happen.

At first there is just the house "brownie" (voiced by Martin Short) who seems reasonably harmless.

But when the kids find and open Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You, things get scarier. If the hidden fairy world falls into the wrong hands, it will open a Pandora's Box of terror - and lots of CG effects. Nick Nolte's monster arrives looking like the children's father before transforming himself into Mr Beastly, determined to grab hold of the book and its secrets.

The Spiderwick Chronicles isn't particularly successful when attempting to illustrate its subsidiary theme: the mark made on the children by Mother's divorce. But it does illustrate the strange world summoned up by the old book with some technical resource. I've never seen some many goblins in my life.

It is always difficult for actors to perform in front of or behind the effects.

But all the cast do as well as they can - and when Joan Plowright, as Arthur's elderly wife (he's 125, by the way), comes on during the finale with her beguiling smile, you know the film will end happily. You may troop out contently, too, if you don't expect too much.