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Inkheart

Based on the first of a trilogy of children’s books popular with the same set that can recite entire chapters of Harry Potter from memory, Inkheart is a story to tickle the fancy of kids who love reading books. An admirable goal, but one I would have thought as potentially lucrative as anchovy bubblegum: that the books are apparently quite successful perhaps indicates that the age of post-literacy isn’t entirely inevitable.

Rafi Gavron and Eliza Bennett in Inkheart

The film stars Brendan Fraser, the new Dean Jones, as Mortimer Folchart, a “famous book doctor” (can there be such a thing?) with the unusual and unwanted power of making the books he reads aloud come literally to life. The unwanted part comes when this turns out to be a two-way street: years ago, reading a medieval fantasy adventure to his young daughter, he not only pulled some malefactors out of the story but sent his wife into it. As we join them the daughter is a tweenie and the two are roaming Europe trying to find a copy of the book so that he can somehow bring mom back. (Why he hasn’t simply bought a copy on Amazon is the first of many unanswered questions.) At the same time he is hunted by the dastards he unleashed, who have other, more lucrative ideas for his abilities. We sympathize with the villains because we too are distracted from the plot line by thinking of all things we could do with such a power, none of which ever seem to occur to poor dull Brendan. As a big special effects extravaganza the movie will probably satisfy the needs of a young audience that wants nothing more than 90 minutes of endlessly shape-shifting eye candy. Anyone over the age of eight is more likely to be distracted by the arbitrary plotting in which the range of these magical powers (inevitably inherited by our young heroine) seems to be whatever is called for to get a character out of a difficult story point. The copyright laws prevent Inkheart from doing anything too interesting with the notion of pulling characters out of books, and so we instead get references to The Wizard of Oz, a story known to the audience only because they’ve seen the movie. This is a story that screams for Terry Gilliam, who wouldn’t have made any more sense out of it but would have at least made it entertaining. Instead, it was directed by Iain Softley (K-PAX), who does neither.



Watch the movie trailer for Inkheart


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