Sunday, September 20, 2009

Movie Review: Inkheart


"Inkheart" is a Brendan Fraser movie that does a great job of minimizing Brendan Fraser to the point where he doesn't suck all the life out of it. Though, everybody in the movie, but Fraser, has a British accent. But, the minimalization (is that word?) of Fraser worked...I ended up really liking this movie, rating it 4 stars.

"Inkheart" is loosely based on a children's book of the same title. I say loosely, not because I've read the book, but because I've been told that the movie and the book are quite different. Also, because it seems like all movies based on books are loosely based. "Inkheart" centers around Mo Folchart (Fraser) and his daughter Meggie. Mo is a bookbinder who always searches the bookstores he visits for a certain book. Unbeknownst to his daughter, when Mo reads aloud, he brings characters in the book he is reading to life. The adventure begins when the evil Capricorn (played by Andy Serkis, who was Gollum in Lord of the Rings) tracks down Mo and his daughter. Capricorn was brought to life out of a book, and wants Mo to bring more characters to life, in order to carry out his evil plans.

Overall, "Inkheart" kept me interested. I think it started out slowly, but picked up pace about 30-40 minutes in. Paul Bettany is really good as Dustfinger, and like I said, Fraser didn't annoy me. The young girl in the movie, Eliza Bennet, is very good for a child actor. Of course, it's hard to look bad next to Brendan Fraser.

I think I'm going to let my kids watch this one. It's definitely PG for a reason, but I think any kid who can handle a good adventure movie and a little suspense would like "Inkheart".

3 comments:

Sean Smith said...

I haven't seen this movie, Jake. But the only good Brendan Fraser movie I've ever seen is one where he isn't in it!

BookWorm said...

I've read the first 1/3 to 1/2 of InkHeart and from what I remember I can say from your descrpition that it is only loosely based on the book. I thought the evil character wants back into the book, but I might be wrong.

Why risk bad acting and poorly summarized plots? Read the book people! (And the rest of the trilolgy.)

BookWorm said...

One more thing...

Is it just me or does there seem to be some rule that you can't make an action film with kids in it unless you have Brendan Fraser or Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in it, too?