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Directed By
Iain Softley
Written By:
David Lindsay-Abaire, Cornelia Funke
Cast:
Brendan Fraser, Andy Serkis, Paul Bettany, Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent, Sienna Guillory, Jamie Foreman, Tereza Srbova, Marnix Van Den Broeke, Matt King, Lesley Sharp, Richard Strange, Stephen Modell, Jay Fuller, Rafi Gavron, David Stevenson, Alex Argenti, Eliza Bennett, Steve Speirs, Adam Bond, Antonio Gil, Mirabel O'Keefe, Mike Godfrey, Leeroy Bailey, Mike Busson
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Inkheart (2009)
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Movie Review by Zara 
June 28th, 2009
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I suppose the biggest problem with this film was the book which it was taken from. I started reading the Inkheart first novel (there are two subsequent books, "Inkspell" and "Inkdeath" and based on the poor box office reception for this one, I don't think they'll get made) and realized how bloated and verbose it was for a supposed "8-12 young readers" tome.
So we got about a third of the way through the book, as reading it aloud was lengthy and tiresome, even if author Funke tries her best to properly flesh out all of the characters. And the portion that we read through gets about 20 minutes (or less) into the movie. Let's just say that the movie skips over, changes and avoids a great deal of what was written in the book in terms of the specifics that Funke obviously put arduous hours into writing. And most of the chronological problems are distracting.
However, the movie is filled with great character actors who appear to have read the source material and are doing great justice to those characters. Mirren doesn't get nearly enough screentime and you never really understand the pain and torment that Bettany's Dustfinger character is going through (the book takes great pains to explain that the people from the book are all gypsies with little to no education and can't read books themselves, the movie does not point this out).
There's a cute aside where Dustfinger thinks back to his family and the movie manages to work in his real-life actress wife Jennifer Connelly into the film. But you'd have to know your Hollywood to see that.
As a family film, it ultimately is interesting for children of the age group the book was meant for (8-12 years), anything younger and they might be scared of some of the creatures, anything older and they'd be bored with the melancholy nature of the film.
As an adult, it's not bad but it's not great either.
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 | The Alpha Craig
Jul 2, 2009 3:50 PM
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| I never read the book, but one thing I learned in script-writing class is that you never change the rules of the universe the story takes place in half-way through. In this movie the "Silver Tounges" bring the printed word to life, but then suddenly can bring any word, printed or freshly written, to life thus drastically changing the rules. If this fact was known in the beginning, they could have easily avoided everything in the story by writing a few simple words, "Every went back to normal." |
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