Review of The Pagemaster (1994) by Shane V — 23 Dec 2009

Another look into the world of animation with my review of the classic "The Pagemaster".

The story unfolds with a boy named Richard Tyler, a young lad living on statistics and scared to death of doing anything. When his frustrated father sends him on an errand, the boy ends up riding through a storm and seeks shelter in a library. But, as Richard discovers, not everything is as it seems in the land of literature, and he must overcome himself if he wishes to escape it.

I remember watching this as a kid, and I am a bit disappointed to see how it turned out on my scale. It seems that even after six movies, Macauley Culkin can't act. Christopher Lloyd on the other hand, was brilliant and completely stole the show, even with only having two scenes (four if you count the animation). The story is an interesting, but not original one. Most animated movies I see about people have to do with dealing with personal problems or fears. The dialogue was very poor, and the talent recruited was somewhat under-used, including Whoopi Goldberg, Patrick Stewart, Leonard Nimoy, and of course Mr. Lloyd. The story includes some of the most famous books of all time, including "Treasure Island", "Moby Dick", and even "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde". The animation was decent for the time, and perhaps slightly out of date. But the story is fine and the characters are great and fully explored through the animation. It's a fine and play-inspiring flick for the kids, but I think this one could even stand to be remade. Either in live-action or just better animation. Overall, I give The Pagemaster an unfortunate 4 out of 10.