Despite his name, [director] Softley plays it with a heavy hand, distracting viewers with lots of action, hideous makeup and garish costumes, but the effect is more perplexing than enlightening.
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
Plot holes notwithstanding, Inkheart is a well-timed and well-made family film that seems too good for the traditional January dumping grounds.
While the story proves the pen is mightier than the sword, this flaccid adaptation proves the book is mightier than the film.
Inkheart is a valentine to books mainly by negative example -- the leaps of imagination it doesn't achieve.
A kids' adventure movie can be a lot of things -- wild and woolly, loosey-goosey, full of foolishness -- but they should never be shabby. And that's the best word for Inkheart.
Inkheart may not be rotten to the core -- instead of maggots, the fantasy adventure seethes with good intentions -- but the overripeness of its special effects can't be overstated.
Much is made of the magic of literature in Inkheart, but the joys of losing yourself in reading are undermined by the movie's barrage of special effects and a convoluted plot.
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.
A brisk and engaging adventure for kids who love books as well as for those who don't.
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.
The story is a whirl, a jumble, an effusion -- sometimes flowing smoothly, other times jerking along as if the filmmaker has been given advice he resents regarding pacing and the balance of sweetness and danger.
Take some bits from "Harry Potter" and "Arabian Nights," loads from "The Wizard of Oz" and mix with an original story that we never even get to hear and you get the torturously tedious "Inkheart."
there is nothing that resembles fun anywhere. No sense of emotional involvement by anyone on screen, and certainly no breathtaking and/or lurking sense of doom
We leave doubly convinced that words are better left squat, inert, and black on the page
Inkheart won't make people forget Princess Bride, but it may give them pleasant flashbacks while it rollicks through its own bookish adventures.
The finished product teases, but does not fulfill, with what could have been. Having seen Inkheart only days ago, its details have already begun to fade from memory. Great literature and cinema is not this easily forgotten.
[U]nquestionably for children, but unlike many children's movies, it does not assume kids are stupid or will respond only to toilet humor or slapstick...
Similar to the movie adaptation of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass (Knopf, 1996), the filmmakers shoehorn most of the book's plot into a small amount of time, leaving little room for character development or nuanced acting.
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.
Entertaining enough for young teens, but a little more thought could have made it appealing to adults as well.
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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