For the effects spectacle, the film works to a degree, but the vast majority of the humdrum plot might leave more kids asleep rather than engaged.
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:Jan 23, 2009 Wide
Box Office: $17,281,832
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
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Release:
Jun 23, 2009
DVD Features:
- Region [unknown]
- Keep Case
- Full Frame - 1.33
Audio:
- (unspecified) English
Additional Release Material:
- Featurette
- 1. A Story from the Cast and Crew [Playing the game "tell me a story," Novelist Cornelia Funke starts the cast & crew off on this wild adventure by giving the first line,"I discovered the hole under my bed on my thirtenth birthday…."
- 2. 2. Eliza Reads to Us [Actress Eliza Bennett ("Meggie Folchart") shares one of her favorite passages from the book that did not end up in the movie accompanied by Cornelia illustrations of the story]
Reviews for Inkheart
If there's a problem for me with Inkheart, it is one of scope. This feels like it should be an epic movie, but it's not.
There are moments of absolute wonder to be had. Just not enough to make the film anything more than a painless misfire.
Inkheart is entertaining enough, if not always easy to follow. And if it does nothing else, at least it may inspire kids to read, if for no other reason than to help make sense of it all.
Inkheart was shot in and around Liguria on the Italian Riviera, and it looks absolutely ravishing. But the most resonant and, frankly, wonderful aspect of the film is its unabashed love for books and the wonders to be found within.
Inkheart won't make people forget Princess Bride, but it may give them pleasant flashbacks while it rollicks through its own bookish adventures.
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?
The real problem with Inkheart isn't that it's badly made but that it simply shouldn't have been made at all.
Brendan Frasier's Mo may be able to conjure magic, but the same can't be said for this film.
Inkheart feels as though it has been pulled apart and put back together several times over, leading to a viewing experience that's equal parts bewilderment and tedium.
Last Action Hero for books. By proxy, it's also kind of The Purple Rose of Cairo for books, but it's not as good as either... It would really amuse me if it ended with the family deciding, after all this trouble, let's never read again.
A convoluted story but otherwise this is solid fantasy fare, nicely performed and handsomely made.
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 was a busy, crowded, hugely successful book to start with....the film version retains nearly all of author Cornelia Funke's story complications. It's a mixed bag and a serious load for a movie to carry.
Doesn't fill us with a sufficient sense of awe for the spectacular visual concepts that we've come to expect in big-scale movie fantasy.
Despite its interest in creative expression, Inkheart's hurried pace, shorthand characterizations and regularly scheduled set-pieces obliterate all but the faintest traces of lucid thought.
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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