The House with a Clock in Its Walls is possessed of a sprightly, featherweight tone that can only be described as Spielberg-extra-lite. It features familiar Amblin iconography like warm suburban photography (by Rogier Stoffers), a wide-eyed moppet protagonist, a lot of kid-friendly humor, and the type in-depth exploration of a secret world of magic that is so well-worn that it's lost all its tread. The House with a Clock in Its Walls is missing a lot of vital charm and genuine wonderment that its genre so thirstily requires and is so rarely rewarded with.