Hollywood Product: Inkheart
January 23, 2009 at 4:43 pm by Curt Holman in A&E
GENRE: Fantasy adventure for Harry Potter fans
THE PITCH: Single dad/bibliophile Mo Folchart (Brendan Fraser) is a “silvertongue,” with the power to draw characters out of books and send real people into them. He and his daughter (Eliza Bennett) track down an obscure fantasy novel named Inkheart to find his long-lost wife, despite the interference of such “fictional” personalities as the villainous Capricorn (Andy Serkis) and the conflicted antihero Dustfinger (Paul Bettany).
MONEY SHOTS: Dustfinger’s pet ferret chases Mo. Capricorn keeps a stable with creatures such as Peter Pan’s ticking crocodile and the Wizard of Oz’s flying monkeys. Mo reads the cyclone out of Oz to cover their escape from Capricorn’s castle. A big smoke monster called the Shadow looks pretty cool (if suspiciously like Lord of the Rings’ balrog). Oscar winner Dame Helen Mirren rides a mythological beast into an action scene, which is almost worth the price of admission.
BEST LINE: “You barbaric piece of pulp fiction!” Mirren snaps at Serkis, who each give such plummy, charismatic performances, it’s as though they’ve been read from a better movie.
WORST LINE: “Ah, the famous book doctor,” purrs a used bookstore owner upon meeting Mo. Could someone who restores books ever be well-known enough to qualify as “famous?”
LITERARY FOOTNOTES: By an amazing coincidence, most the books referenced tend to be old enough to be in the public domain, such as Arabian Nights, Huckleberry Finn, Rapunzel and other fairy tales. Harriet the Spy and The Madwoman of Chaillot get quick shout-outs. I spent the film secretly hoping Mo would read a passage that would begin, “Dear Penthouse: I never thought this would happen to me, but…”
BODY COUNT: Dustfinger sports some wicked scratches around an eye and a henchman left Mo’s arm scarred years ago. Otherwise most of the film’s “violence” involves characters vanishing or crumbling into dust — does that count as dying? Or just getting lost in a good book?
FASHION STATEMENT: The appearance of a red riding hood marks the first manifestation of Mo’s gift. Capricorn employs a stuttering silvertongue who wears a bowler hat. The bowler hat guy’s not as good at reading characters out of books, so Capricorn’s henchmen, the Black Jackets, have literary passages tattooed across their faces. Also, the Black Jackets have black leather jackets. Mirren sports various head wraps, turbans and a pair of huge goggles when she drives a motorcycle.
HEY, WAIT A MINUTE: Putting aside the premise’s superficial resemblance to Adam Sandler’s Bedtime Stories, when did books become such a part of Brendan Fraser’s onscreen persona? His attachment to a paperback copy of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth was a major plot point in last summer’s 3-D adventure of the same name. Not to judge a book by its cover, as it were, but Fraser doesn’t seem like a big reader.
THE BOTTOM LINE: This adaptation of Cornelia Funke’s popular young adult novel alternates between moments of fantastical excitement, and scenes of characters standing around aimlessly waiting for the plot to catch up with them. Inkheart’s magical rules seem inconsistent and its plot holes yawn like canyons, but the performances from Serkis, Mirren, Bettany and Jim Broadbent (as the book’s dumbfounded author) keep the film from deserving a nickname like Stinkheart.
Inkheart 2 stars Directed by Iain Softley. Stars Brendan Fraser, Eliza Bennett. Rated PG. Opens Fri., Jan. 23. At area theaters.
(Photo by Murray Close)
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