Cinema review
Directed by Iain Softley
Starring Brendan Fraser, Eliza Bennett, Paul Bettany, Andy Serkis, Sienna Guillory, Helen Mirren
Release date 12 December 2008

Mo (Fraser) and his daughter Meggie (Bennett) are ‘Silvertongues’ – folk who have the rare power to literally bring characters to life every time they read a book aloud. Many years ago, Mo read from the book Inkheart – which resulted in his wife, Teresa (Guillory), being sucked into the story. Now the bad guys from Inkheart want to use the Silvertongues’ skill for their own ends...

Inkheart may be the story of bringing fictional characters to life, but it took so long for this adaptation of Cornelia Funke’s fantasy to reach the big screen that it almost seemed like it would never happen. It was originally slated for release in 2007 and got pushed further and further back due to the writers’ strike (which, marketing bods reasoned, would impact on the effectiveness of running TV ads), uncertain test screenings and studio indecision. The good news is that, aside from a rather tacked-on epilogue, this doesn’t feel like a movie plagued by last minute re-edits or production problems. The bad news is that it instead feels like a rather anonymous big budget fantasy.

Though he occasionally reminds us that he’s an accomplished “serious actor” in fare such as Gods and Monsters and Crash, Brendan Fraser seems content to play variations on adventurous father figures these days. No problem there – Fraser has proven he can carry a big movie with his winning combination of self-deprecating charm and heartfelt sentiment, and he offers up another likeable hero in Inkheart. Mo is more low-key and despair-ridden than The Mummy’s Rick O’Connell or Journey to the Center of the Earth’s Trevor Anderson, but when it comes to the inevitable action heroics he delivers the goods with aplomb.

The rest of the cast are just as impressive. Eliza Bennett is engaging as the wonder-struck young Meggie, while, in Paul Bettany’s torn juggler Dustfinger, we have a figure akin to Labyrinth’s Hoggle, a man constantly shifting allegiance between the good guys and the wicked Capricorn (an entertaining Andy Serkis, though too hammy to feel like much of a threat). Helen Mirren swaps serious thesping for comic relief as the crotetchy grandmother Elinor, and watch out for Peep Show’s Matt ‘Super Hans’ King as Capricorn’s henchman Cockerell.

But, after a wave of middling post-Potter kids’ fantasies (The Golden Compass, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Prince Caspian and so forth), Inkheart does little to mark itself out from the pack. The constant dashing between the real world and fictional one (often with scant attention to logic) becomes wearisome after a while, and it all descends into an extended feast of action and CGI. Director Iain Softley (Backbeat) stages all of this competently enough and there’s a nice subtext about the power of reading, but there isn’t that sense of genuine magic for Inkheart to rank as a true fantasy classic. Still, as a Christmas family flick, it does the trick. James Skipp

VERDICT: 6/10
Perfectly serviceable but slightly faceless fantasy runaround.