The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018) Review

"There's a clock in the walls.  We don't know what it does except...something horrible."

-Jonathan Barnavelt

After the death of his parents, 10-year-old Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) is sent to live with his uncle, Jonathan Barnavelt (Jack Black), who he has never met.  Both Jonathan and his house are very odd as there are clocks everywhere and Lewis frequently sees his uncle wandering the house at night listening for something in the walls.  Lewis discovers that Jonathan is actually a warlock and begins studying magic himself, but he must learn quickly.  The previous owner of the house, Isaac Izard (Kyle MacLachlan), is returning and has something evil up his sleeve.

What Works:

I was really interested in this film because it's a kids movie directed by Eli Roth who directed gore-fests like Cabin Fever and Hostel.  One thing that Roth manages to get right is the atmosphere.  This film really feels like a Halloween movie with lots of spooky imagery.  The pumpkins, graveyards, and magic makes me want to do the Monster Mash and eat too much candy.

The humor is hit-or-miss, but there are some very funny moments throughout, but I have to admit, most of the good humor comes at the front of the film.  Some of it is also surprisingly dark for a film that is rated PG.

Finally, Jack Black and Cate Blanchett nail their performances.  Both of them are wonderfully campy and a lot of fun.  I could watch a whole movie of just the two of them insulting each other and all of their scenes together are the highlights of the film.

What Sucks:

The movie's biggest problem comes from the protagonist, Lewis, who I found to be extremely irritating and couldn't connect with him at all.  Every time he screamed in fear, I wanted to walk out of the theater.  I really couldn't stand him.  I think this is partly Owen Vaccaro's fault, but more so poor writing and characterization.  Anyone could have played this character and I still wouldn't have liked him  Lewis is a bit of a know-it-all.  I know we are suppose to empathize with the new kid at school who is a social outcast, but he kinda brings it on himself.  He's annoying and not the character I wanted to view this film through.

As I said above, a lot of the humor misfires.  The worst being the poop jokes involving a garden hedge animal.  I don't mind immature humor, but it felt really out of place here.  It doesn't help that they made the same joke three times.  It wasn't funny the first time and just got worse as it was repeated.

I am a huge fan of Kyle MacLachlan, but he is not given nearly enough to do.  His character is played completely serious and is not very interesting.  We don't see much of him until the end of the film.  That's not the type of villain we need in a movie like this.  He needs to be over-the-top and chewing on scenery throughout the story.  It's a waste of MacLachlan's talents because he could have been fantastic with some serious character tweaks. 

Finally, the story wasn't all that engaging.  Both Black and Blachett's characters hint at some sort of revelation they need to tell Lewis about early on, which I found intriguing, but it takes far too long to get that and I quickly found myself losing interest.  And the revelation itself wasn't really a revelation.  It was something we had already guessed and wasn't surprising in the least.

Verdict:

I really wanted to like The House with a Clock in Its Walls.  I really did, but I can't.  It's has an awesome atmosphere, a few funny moments, and solid performances from both Black and Blanchett, but the protagonist is annoying, some of the jokes are awful, the story is uninteresting, and Kyle MacLachlan doesn't get nearly enough to do.  Don't waste your time with this one.

 4/10: Bad