Review of Inkheart (2008) by Sara H — 23 Jan 2010

Hollow Words.

Apparently, Brendan Fraser was who the author had in mind for this character. She became a producer of the film at least in part to ensure this. She sent him an autographed copy of the second book in the series to get him interested. This was a thing for her. Indeed, the role seemed written to Brendan Fraser's public persona. It's the goofy, thoughtful, adventurous guy who fights mummies or goes swinging through trees or is played by Dyllan or whatever. On the other hand, as you know, I do tend to lament that this is what people want out of him. Okay, he really does seem to enjoy running about in the center of the Earth, but no one really wants him to act anymore, to the extent that a lot of people simply don't realize he can--or, when they do, they don't think he can do much more than project fatherly concern, which he does a lot here.

Here, he is Mo "Silvertongue" Folchart, who drives around Europe with his daughter, Meggie (Eliza Bennet). Presumably, he is an American living in Europe, because she has an accent and he does not. Anyway, he's a professional book-buyer, details of which are never made clear, and he also seems to do some repairs. However, he is looking for one particular book, and it turns out that people from it have been summoned into the Real World--at the cost of his wife, Resa (Sienna Guillory). He ends up fighting the evil bandit from the titular book, a man called Capricorn (Andy Serkis wearing his own face). He is helped in this by his aunt, Elinor Leridan (Helen Mirren), a few characters from fiction, and the author, Fenoglio (Jim Broadbent). Adventure ensues.

Everyone in this movie wants something. Mo and Meggie want Resa back. Character Dustfinger (Paul Bettany) wants to get back into the book and go home to his wife, Roxanne--who is played by Jennifer Connelly, and wouldn't you want to go back to her, too? Capricorn wants the wealth of other books of other worlds--and to destroy every copy of his own book so he can't ever be sent back. Elinor is another one with a great goal; she wants people to leave her books alone and pay for having damaged them. The issue is that, really, these are all very simple goals. Even that of Fenoglio isn't that complicated. Oftentimes, authors create worlds because they're worlds the author would prefer, and the man's work is so obscure that he's living in an apartment in Thessaly, which for some reason Elinor has never heard of. (Meaning that whatever she reads, it's not Greek mythology; I'd heard of Thessaly by the time I was nine.) Though better Thessaly than a lot of other places; at least it's scenic.

It's not a terrible movie. To give you some idea, I find myself wanting to talk more about how well the CGI is integrated than I do about any of the characters or anything about the plot, and that's never a good sign, but I can remember details of the plot, so that's something. The thing is, though, I do also think that a lot of the CGI is unnecessary. All right--Capricorn wants the best bits of all the books out there. On the other hand, there's clearly a lot about it that's a total crapshoot. It's made clear that a lot of the characters are only half-pulled out of their source material--they have writing still on them, which is apparently how you can tell. And even leaving that aside, it's supposed to be uncertain what you pull out of the book, though sometimes, it seems to be exactly what they want. Oh, and something always has to go into the book in trade, so how do you know it won't be you?

I also need to take a minute to discuss what TV Tropes refers to as "Hollywood Homely." Because here's the thing. The book's author, when he meets Dustfinger, says the scars are exactly as he pictured, and they're hideous. Only really? Most of the time, I forgot he was supposed to have scars at all. It was also pretty easy to miss the horns on his ferret (no, that's not code). Possibly Capricorn was supposed to be terrifying in appearance, but Peter Jackson, of course, did a much better job at that one. I haven't read any of the books, and I'm not terribly interested now, so I don't know if there are any of the tedious [i]Twilight[/i] explanations about how plain everyone is. I'm just annoyed that the "hideous scars" took me three scenes or more to notice, especially given how easy it would be to actually make them hideous.