"Inkheart", based on the book by Cornelia Funke, has a promising premise. A rare few called "silvertongues" are blessed with the ability to bring stories to life when they read them aloud. Brendan Fraser plays one such individual, a rare-book dealer named Mo Folchart. While reading to his daughter one night, he unknowingly releases a cast of characters from the titular tome. Consequently, his wife, Resa (Sienna Guillory), is pulled into the book.
What happened to the book is never quite explained. All we know is that for nine years, Mo has been combing book fairs and antique shops looking for another copy of the book, from which he might release his wife. (Have these people never heard of Amazon.com?) With his now-teenage daughter, Meggie (Eliza Hope Bennett), in tow, he finds a copy in a small alpine village. At that same instant, they encounter Dustfinger (Paul Bettany), an Inkheart character desperate for Mo to read him back into the book so he can return to his love (Jennifer Connelly, in an uncredited cameo). When Mo refuses, Dustfinger rats him out to the villainous Capricorn (Andy Serkis).
On the run from Capricorn and his goons, they seek safety with Resa's aunt Elinor (Helen Mirren) — a book-loving biddy living in an ancient mansion on Lake Como. But the forces of evil are close on their heels and all are are captured and taken to Capricorn's mountaintop lair. There, they encounter an army of storybook creatures and characters. Capricorn, it seems, has a silvertongue in his employ, though his stuttering has caused the characters to be only partially "read-out" — marked with tattoo-like text across their faces and bodies. Considering his silvertongue's shortcomings, Capricorn needs Mo to read out a creature called The Shadow — a monster that will help him conquer our world. And thus, the race is on to stop Capricorn, to find Resa and to put everything right once more.
Despite an interesting premise, big-budget effects and an award-winning cast, "Inkheart" falls completely flat. Any sense of wonder or humor that may have come from Funke's book has been sapped dry, replaced with one lumbering chase scene after another. Strange leaps of logic make the story seem confusing and insipid. Much happens, but we are given very little cause to care.
Fraser was reportedly Funke's inspiration for the character of Mo, and her personal choice for the role though the studio wanted a bigger name. Too bad the studio didn't get their way. Fraser is doing Funke's story no big favors here. His performance is so wooden that midway through the film one forgets he's in it at all.
Sadly, the rest of the cast does little to inject any life into "Inkheart". The talents of Mirren and Jim Broadbent (as Inkheart's reclusive author) are largely wasted, reduced to one-note "cranky old folk" roles. As Capricorn, Serkis, best known as the acting genius behind Gollum in "
The Lord of the Rings", isn't so much menacing as he is just shouty. And aside from one scene in which he juggles fire with his shirt off, Bettany spends much of the film hidden behind a curtain of hair and generally acting like a jerk.
"Inkheart", like the screen adaptations of "
The Golden Compass" and "
Prince Caspian", fails to live up to its source material. In fact, it seems like it's own best argument for leaving some stories on the shelf. Perhaps it's true that some things are better left to the imagination.
