Inkheart Review

Inkheart (2009)

2/4

A book about people who can read stuff out of the books sounds cool already. In this seemingly magical adventure about family and moral values can sure be a sight. Its all good until everything turns into countless cliches and the back to back captures dont make this all the better. Iain Softley has been a part of some bad movies like "The Skeleton Key" but had his share of greatness in his film "The Wings of the Dove". So not all is bad but having Brendan Fraser is almost never a good thing. Sorry Fraser, last time I saw you in a good movie was "The Mummy".

The plot basically follows Mortimer(Fraser) and his daughter Meggie(Eliza Bennet) traveling across the world to try and find this book called Inkheart. It was the first book that Mortimer foud out he can read things out of the book. In basic terms, the things he reads out loud comes to life. Everything seems natural until some stranger by the name of Dustfinger(Paul bettany) comes along. He wants Mortimer to read him back into the book. While Mortimer wants to try and read his wife out. Some dilemma and kind of awkward. In the meantime, a guy by the name of Capricorn(Andy Serkis) wants Mortimer to read the Shadow out of the book so that he can rule the world and dah dah dah.

It seems like the perfect plot and almost even appealing. But it fails greatly resulting into some kid flick filled with great visuals. I can recommend this to a family that has young kids who would love almost any movie. A lot of the film focuses on how to escape and how to get abducted. Kind of makes you feel pretty dumb after a while. Your saying to yourself "Why do they keep going to this place", and you answer "It makes the film exciting". Maybe it does or maybe it tires us after three or four scenes of back to back abductions. Kind of like thoses missing girls that never come back. Scary but still, people keep trying to put themselves in danger. Maybe thats what family means. No one gets behind and anyone whos in the way is going to get the fist. Funny part was, it actually made the movie less exciting.

I love Eliza Bennet and Helen Mirren as actresses. They are among my favorites and their talent are among the best. You may remember Eliza from "Nanny Mcphee" but you would definantly remember her for "Inkheart". She stole the show and her maturity really shows. She is kind of like the Emma Watson protege. A young lady with a wonderful accent that happens to know how to act. A lot of family films have come out this year and this delivers to be rightfully so. If your not a kid and you dont appreciate the actors, then this film would definantly not be for you. If you do like the actors and can tolerate kid flicks then it becomes a passable event.

A film layered with dazzling effects and stacked with a strong cast, it almost seems perfect. But its cliches and predictable storyline makes this all the more of the same. Tolerable despite having such promise. To me, it was a cheap popcorn flick that I enjoyed sitting through.