Keep your expectations reasonable, and you'll have fun.
Inkheart (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:132
Fresh:52
Rotten:80
Average Rating:5.1/10
Consensus: Heavy on cliches and light on charm, this kid-lit fantasy-adventure doesn't quite get off the ground.
Theatrical Release:12-12-2008
Synopsis: Cornelia Funke’s best-selling novel, INKHEART, comes to life in director Iain Softley’s (THE SKELETON KEY, THE WINGS OF THE DOVE) feature-film adaptation of the same name. For 12 years, bookbinder... Cornelia Funke’s best-selling novel, INKHEART, comes to life in director Iain Softley’s (THE SKELETON KEY, THE WINGS OF THE DOVE) feature-film adaptation of the same name. For 12 years, bookbinder Mo (Brendan Fraser) and his daughter, Meggie (Eliza Hope Bennett), have been traveling the world, poking around secondhand bookstores. Meggie correctly assumes that her father is looking for her mother, Resa (Sienna Guillory), who disappeared without a trace. What Meggie doesn’t know is that Mo is a Silvertongue, and when he reads a story aloud, the details and characters come to vivid life. But when a character comes out of a book, someone has to go back in, and Mo is searching a copy of the book, titled "Inkheart," into which Resa literally disappeared. When Mo read the story aloud, unaware of his powers, she was sucked into the story, and the fantastical novel’s villainous characters were released. Now, Mo and Meggie have to keep evil Capricorn and his henchmen from realizing their diabolical plot, and send everyone back where they belong. INKHEART is awash with colorful details. Capricorn has had to make do with a stuttering Silvertongue who delivers characters that are half-read: text from the book is tattooed on their faces, or they suffer some other malady, emerging from the book mute or with an odd physical feature. Paul Bettany is engaging as Dustfinger, a character who desperately wants to be read back into "Inkheart" and return to his family, portrayed by Bettany’s real-life love, Jennifer Connelly, in a miss-her-if-you-blink performance. Helen Mirren is good fun as eccentric, feisty bibliophile Aunt Elinor, and Jim Broadbent appears as the novel’s author, who is enthralled by the possibilities of Mo’s gift. [More]
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Paul Bettany, Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Paul Bettany, Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent, Andy Serkis, Eliza Hope Bennett, Rafi Gavron
Director: Iain Softley
Director: Iain Softley
Screenwriter: David Lindsay-Abaire
Producer: Iain Softley, Diana Pokorny, Cornelia Funke
Composer: Javier Navarrete
Studio: New Line Cinema
Reviews for Inkheart
Seemingly intended as a celebration of the power of books, it's an occasionally incoherent, sleep-inducing picture that reduces narrative to mere mechanics.
Over and over again, characters in Inkheart wax eloquent on the power of books. But there's nothing in the movie as haunting or as compelling as the sound they make when they speak for themselves.
Even though Brendan Fraser might be one of the worst actors out there, his co-stars and a clever script keep this movie alive and entertaining.
A few of the creatures, as well as one startling moment, might unsettle little ones in the audience. But the greater danger is that they'll fall asleep.
Inkheart takes a great idea and then refuses to do much with that idea -- including, I'm afraid, explaining it clearly to the audience.
A flea market of fairy tales and hocus-pocus, Inkheart makes as much sense as an inkblot.
The overqualified cast gives its all, but logical lapses and sober-sided direction siphon off the fun.
The movie never achieves the sort of transporting fantasy that formed the backbone of the novel: The limitless potential for adventure and excitement that books provide, given physical form when transplanted into our reality.
Despite strong production values and a cast of heavy hitters, Inkheart never hooks us as it should.
Taken far too literally from the best-selling trilogy by Cornelia Funke, Inkheart is a passable, but prosaic and remarkably humourless kidflick that all but sucks the magic out of fairy tales by rendering the characters ordinary.
The film’s storybook Alpine vistas are lovely to behold, and bits of humor pop out in welcome moments. Other than that, it never quite springs to life as intended -- not in your kitchen, and not on screen.
As an adventure flick, Inkheart is not all that adventurous. It goes to places and falls on tropes that many fantasy films -- most notably but not exclusively the Lord of the Rings trilogy -- have covered.
Even if it can't quite conjure up the movie magic it intends, Inkheart does serve as public service announcement promoting literacy. And as such, your kids could do a lot worse at the cineplex.
Much of this comes across as a labor of love, with a classy cast frolicking in Iain Softley's whimsical direction of a lushly imagined adaptation by David Lindsay-Abaire.
It's handsomely mounted, with supporting turns by Helen Mirren as the girl's flinty aunt and Jim Broadbent as the author of the book that caused so much fuss.
Inkheart illustrates an obvious problem with making a movie about the joys of reading when the movie made is labored and sludgy looking: Why bother seeing it if you can stay home and read a book instead?
Inkheart is a fantastic read, and I wasn't expecting the film to live up to it at all. Much simpler than the book, the film is still a pretty fantastic ride. The story is changed around a bit but the main characters are there, exactly as you remember them
For a movie about the power of books and stories, it's a bit ironic that Inkheart is itself so poorly thought through.
Latest News for Inkheart
January 30, 2009:
Making a movie about the magic to be found in reading books, is a little like General Motors singing the praises of riding a bike instead. ![]()
More...
January 22, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Inkheart Is Less Than Magical
This week at the movies, we've got living literature (Inkheart, starring Brendan Fraser and Eliza Hope Bennett); political intrigue (Frost/Nixon, starring Michael Sheen and... More...
January 22, 2009:
Box Office Guru Preview: Underworld Battles Oscar All-Stars
Only two new releases hit the North American box office, but in the wake of Academy Award nominations, a handful of contenders take the opportunity to expand nationwide hoping... More...
December 14, 2008:
Warner Bros. Firms Up 2009 Schedule ![]()
From "Inkheart" to "Sherlock Holmes," the Warner Bros. slate for 2009 has been set, and ComingSoon has posted it for your perusal. More...
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