Photo by Murray Close/New Line Cinema, Murray Close/New Line Cinema
No mummies here: Brendan Fraser stars as Mortimer, a bookbinder on a years-long search for a rare novel titled "Inkheart." Along the way he encounters flying monkeys and a ticking crocodile.
A tale of magical "Silvertongues" who bring characters "out of books and into our world" when they read aloud, "Inkheart" is hardly spellbinding.
But considering that this week I saw parents carrying toddlers into a matinee screening of the R-rated bloodbath that is "My Bloody Valentine 3D," I'm glad "Inkheart" is here, whether adults who take kids to the movies make use of it or not.
Photo by Murray Close/New Line Cinema
No mummies here: Brendan Fraser stars as Mortimer, a bookbinder on a years-long search for a rare novel titled "Inkheart." Along the way he encounters flying monkeys and a ticking crocodile.
Mortimer "Mo" Folchart and his 12-year-old daughter, Meggie, share an extraordinary gift for bringing characters from books to life when they read aloud. But there ...
Rating: PG for fantasy adventure action, some scary moments and brief language
Length: 106 minutes
Released: January 23, 2009 Nationwide
Cast: Brendan Fraser, Paul Bettany, Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent, Andy Serkis
Director: Iain Softley
Writer: David Lindsay-Abaire, Cornelia Funke
Better an adventure movie for families that (however paradoxically) extols the value and wonder of books than yet another movie that celebrates violent revenge or asinine behavior.
Like such other recent releases as "City of Ember" and "The Spiderwick Chronicles," "Inkheart" is a second-tier fantasy action-adventure that should appeal to fans looking for a decent if unspectacular example of its type while waiting for the next J.K. Rowling or J.R.R. Tolkien adaptation.
Directed by Iain Softley from a 2003 young-adult novel by German author Cornelia Funke, "Inkheart" stars Brendan Fraser (possibly atoning for the post-literate spectacle of his "Mummy" movies) as Mortimer, a bookbinder with a teenage daughter, Meggie (Eliza Hope Bennett), on a years-long search for a rare novel titled "Inkheart."
The trail leads to Italy, where Meggie and her eccentric book-collecting aunt (Helen Mirren) learn that Mortimer is a Silvertongue, whose wife -- Meggie's mother -- disappeared inside the novel "Inkheart" even as some characters from the book -- including a magical fire-juggler named Dustfinger (Paul Bettany) and the villainous Capricorn (Andy Serkis) -- popped into the so-called real world.
"I don't read aloud any more," Mortimer says. "It's too dangerous." (Give the movie kudos for suggesting that reading is not an activity for wimps.)
Joined by the author (Jim Broadbent) of "Inkheart" and a youth (Rafi Gavron) from an Arabian Nights tale, the good guys battle the bad guys in Capricorn's castle, materialized out of the pages of the book by a kidnapped Silvertongue, a stutterer (John Thomson) whose imperfect reading creates imperfect beings with typeface tattooed across their faces. (The presence in the castle of flying monkeys and a ticking crocodile tells us that the Silvertongue's reading list has included "The Wizard of Oz" and "Peter Pan.")
Hardly bright or breezy in the manner of a Hollywood production, "Inkheart" has something of a dark, Continental feel. It builds momentum slowly; kids with short attention spans may squirm at first, but children sympathetic to the material may fall in love with the concept. And maybe they'll want to read when they get home. The Mirren character provides this encouragement: "Books are adventure -- they love anyone who opens them."
-- John Beifuss, 529-2394
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