Review

Review Date: 25-January-09
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Just OK

Inkheart (2009)

Cornelia Funke's fantasy Inkheart began with a great idea. What if you had the power to call things out of books by reading aloud? You could pick up a volume of Narnia and BAM, Mr. Tumnus would be in your living room. If you were hungry you could open a collection of nursery rhymes and summon Jack Horner's pie. As with most powers, though, this one would come with a price. For everything you brought out of a story something from your world would go in, and you would have no control over what was traded. It is an interesting concept which Funke did not develop well, or developed in ways my tastes do not appreciate. Meandering down the darker alleys of power, where gun-toting thugs overrun the Italian countryside and an inept reader maims characters as he yanks them from their pages, Inkheart is essentially creepy. Its translation to the big screen tempers some of the creepiness but fails to enhance the adventure.

The movie would have benefitted from trimming several of Funke's characters, but at least the cast is strong. Brendan Fraser makes an affable if unlikely Mo Folchart, the bookbinder who lost his wife by reading aloud and now hopes to protect his daughter Meggie (Eliza Hope Bennett) from the dangers of his gift. His hopes are dashed with the appearance of a mysterious harlequin of sorts called Dustfinger. Dustfinger is the fascinating, antiheroic soul of the tale, endowed with appropriate charisma by the chronically underused Paul Bettany. He was read out of a book titled "Inkheart" and wants Mo to read him back. Frustrated by being refused, Dustfinger forms a shaky alliance with another émigré from his world, the evil Capricorn (whom Lord of the Rings alum Andy Serkis might have fleshed out if given the chance). Capricorn's enjoyment of his new situation — castle, minions, tailored Italian suits — lacks only a special reader who can grant him anything and everything he wants.

Noted thespians Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent join the fray as Mo's crusty Aunt Elinor and the author of Inkheart, respectively. (This too is creepy: the fully human Dustfinger's discomfort at meeting his dopey, equally human creator.) Abetted by a horned weasel, the famous dog Toto, and a dreamboat from Arabian Nights (Rafi Gavron), the cast skulks around Capricorn's enclave trying to save each other and their skins. Traditional themes emerge as Meggie discovers her own power, her long lost mother, and the dreamboat. Like all of Inkheart, the coming-of-age aspects feel improperly fitted into place. The movie has readers and lots of books, but what it truly needed was an editor.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.