Inkheart

Reviewer: Alyice Edrich

The Movie

Teaser

A young father has the ability to read characters out of a book. There’s just one problem, in the process, he mistakenly sends his wife—the mother of his young daughter—into the very same book. Now, he must find a way to bring her back before it’s too late.

Starring

Brendan Fraser, Eliza Bennett, Paul Bettany, Helen Mirren, Andy Serkis, Jim Broadbent, and more.

Plot

When we heard that the author of Inkheart had Brendan Fraser, in mind for the film, my daughter and I could not wait to see the film! We're big Brendan Fraser fans. He has this innocent, boyish charm--though he's quite a man. He's a strong actor, good at both humor and action, and could do the right film a great bit of justice. And that's what we were expecting from Inkheart.

Sadly, it didn't deliver as we'd hoped. Don't get me wrong, Inkheart is a good film. We actually enjoyed it enough to want to own the film. But it's not one of Fraser’s strongest films. Though he was the lead character, his character was lost somewhere in the fast pace of the film, leaving his character flat—or perhaps Fraser just didn’t give the role his best performance. Either way it feels as though the screenwriters fast-forwarded through the entire plot to get to the climax and it left us wanting more—needing more.

The film has a gorgeous set, the supporting characters were lively, the costumes exquisite, and the comedic antics and literary jokes are right on cue. But we couldn’t connect with Mortimer, the main character—and we desperately wanted to. We wanted to enjoy the idea of storybook characters coming to life before tragedy befell. We wanted to feel the loss Mortimer felt upon losing his wife. We wanted to become emotionally connected to the storyline—but we couldn’t.

That being said, young children won’t miss much. The storyline offers just the right amount of adventure, laughter, and magic for young children. It’s not too deep that they get lost in the drama and not too detailed that it scares them.

Mortimer "Mo" Folchart, a.k.a. Silvertongue, has the ability to read a book to life. By reading a book aloud, the characters from the book enter our world—there’s just one problem…someone from our world ends up in the book! One day, while reading aloud to his wife and child, she disappears into the book and an evil king named Capricorn shows up.

The next scene jumps to the future, with Mo repairing old books for a living and traveling the globe in search of the very book that could set his wife free. Upon visiting a tiny village, another character from the book, Dustfinger, appears and thus begins the journey.

We discover that Capricorn has done everything he could to find every last one of the books containing his story and destroying them—hoping to never be returned to his book. Dustfinger, on the other hand, has tried to find a way back into his book—so that he can be with his wife again. And all the time Mo has been searching for his wife, she’s been in our world—condemned to serve as Capricorn’s kitchen servant—thanks to another “Silvertongue”.

The climax, which takes up most of the storyline, is about finding a way to rescue Mo’s wife and returning the characters back to their appropriate books without putting anymore “real” people in harm’s way.

Again, it’s not a bad film and worth watching if for nothing more than the set and scenery. But it could have been so much better!

Your Task

Hold a “critic” viewing with your children. Set up a temporary theatre in your home, complete with popcorn and pop. Hand each child a tablet, and ask them to watch the film with a critical eye. Have them answer questions like, “What could have made this film better? What hurt the film? What was the best part about the film? What did you think of the set, the costumes, the dialogue? What was your favorite part of the film and why?” Then once the film is over, give each child a chance to share his/her thoughts with the reward being, a movie rental of their choice.

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