There is a tired, but true trend in Hollywood these days: when someone writes a successful novel, bigwigs will jump on the hardcover success, turning it into a multi-million-dollar motion picture.
Inkheart is yet another example of a book green-lit for the silver screen. As we see this trend happen again and again, it is starting to tiptoe on unimaginative pointlessness.
The film revolves around Mo Folchart (Brendan Fraser, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor), a dream-weaving father who reads books and makes the stories come to life. In doing so, he forces people into the books that he reads.
In the title case, he sends his wife Resa (Sienna Guillory, Eragon) into the book Inkheart. Now it is up to him and a group of misfits to find his long-lost love in just over an hour and forty minutes of screen time.
As it turns out, Folchart's daughter Meggie (Eliza Bennett, Nanny McPhee) also has the uncanny ability to make stories come to life.
The film as a whole can be rough, as the actors can barely act. Fraser is no exception. Though pegged as the star, he's barely in the film at all. And for the time that he is on screen, his performance is dull and boring.
Apart from the bad acting, the movie is somewhat interesting. Imagine reading a book that suddenly writes an alternate reality before your eyes. And with everything you read, something else has to go back into the book.
Inkheart's characters have no real guidance and just happen to be at the wrong place in the wrong time. With no real direction and villains far from threatening, both the film and its heroes fail to sustain the viewer's ultimate interest.
Though the costumes textured the story quite well and the characters seemed to fit in their worlds, the actors don't do anything except convince us that more is needed from this adaptation.
Director Iain Softley (The Skeleton Key) did the best he could with this story it seems, but to very poor results.
If you want to see this film, save yourself the trouble and watch any other fantasy film based on a popular book. At the end of the day, all of these films are the same in concept-the characters, creatures, settings, and stories are almost interchangeable.
Inkheart may be entertaining with a younger crowd, but for serious moviegoers and fantasy fans, do yourself a favor and leave this one off of your list of things to do.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
