Genres

Visitors Review

Sindaannuniel 2012-05-21 01:04:52

In a word. . .magical!

Let's face it, it's tough to write a screenplay for a novel asintricately woven as "Inkheart." Some scenes were cut that should havebeen included and some sections were changed entirely. But isn't it thecharacters that count? Their development and how true they are to theoriginal work? In that regard, this movie is amazing! Everyone, exceptfor perhaps Basta, was exactly as I pictured, with star performances bythe leading cast. Watching Dustfinger blow fire into his fingertips andlistening to Mo's voice while he reads treasure from "Arabian Nights?"It sent shivers up my spine to actually be watching one of my favoritebooks come alive on screen. And honestly, if we don't give this movie achance than we're squashing any hopes of ever seeing "Inkdeath" on thebig screen. Come on people, give "Inkheart" a chance!

Morgana888 2012-05-20 16:25:24

INKHEART is a treasured film to view over and again!

Starring Brendan Fraser & Dame Helen Mirren, who as the eccentric auntglows throughout every scene she's in, INKHEART is a grand fantasy thatliterally sweeps you into its story within an nth of a second. Eachcharacter tells a story within itself and the INKHEART author character(Jim Broadbent) is magnificent to the point you pray for him to havewritten more copies! I love this film! No screenwriter has given anaudience such delight in a long time and should be writing another soonwith "Meggie" as the "Silvertongue" that does more than the usual"gifted" reader does! The first frame had me sitting up straight andforgetting the world existed. I had no headaches or potty breaks.INKHEART absorbs you to the point when the house lights come upafterward; you sit silently smiling then leave still smiling for hours!INKHEART makes you search IMDb for not only the screenplay writer andall else, they wrote but also the novel's author and director. If theycan create together these unforgettable characters, then what othermagic do they have on screen? For those who seek a MYTHOLOGICAL HERO,they find not one but one in each character who evolves within INKHEARTwhether they are good or evil!

PirateRaven 2012-05-16 18:24:05

Fantastic

After years and years of waiting, I finally got to go see this movielast night. Needless to say I was extremely excited, and a littlenervous. I've had my heart broken by books-into-movies before, and Ireally didn't want that to be the case here.Fortunately, my fears were unfounded, for the most part. I loved thismovie. Absolutely adored it. I had a few problems with it, but overallit was fantastic. So let's go through the list.Dustfinger. I cannot say enough. He was perfect, exactly how I havealways imagined him. It was so fantastic to see a character like himbrought to life, a character that is so torn between the fate that waswritten for him, and his own desires. Torn between the personality thathe's supposed to have, and his growing sense of honor and loyalty. PaulBettany played it perfectly. I will forever now re-read the book withhim in mind, and to me, that is a great thing. So yeah. He was awesome.*thumbs up* Now, Fenoglio. I was surprised to find myself quite annoyedby him for his first few minute of screen time, but I slowly grew toappreciate what his personality brought to the film. And he had somefantastic lines. (Look, it's Basta! Isn't he awful??) His totalfascination with the world that he created, even while he was in dangermade me laugh. So I'm OK with the changes to his personality.Meggie was good, not amazing, but good. She's a decent actress, and shebrought out the emotion necessary. Her interaction with Farid was verycute, and I can certainly see their relationship growing if they makeInkspell.I was surprised when Farid turned out to be surprisingly good-looking.*laughs* I'm not much of a fangirl, but the people I went to see thiswith were fangirls, and they made lots of noise. Again, good actor, notamazing, but good, and I liked that they showed off his athletic skillswith all the roof-jumping and running about. And his attachment toDustfinger was hysterical.Elinor was very enjoyable to watch, especially when she roared down theroad on her rented motorcycle. Her spunk and enthusiasm impressed me,and I wished she had gotten a bigger part.Capricorn was fun to watch, and I loved the duct tape line. He manageto pull of eerily sinister and slightly funny at the same time.Basta's mustache cracked me up. And he was so short! I would have likedif he had a bigger role as well.Mo was perfectly cast, and it was fun to see him take on the role. Iwas disappointed when he didn't read the ending that finished Capricornoff, and that brings me to my gripes with the movie.Meggie was not supposed to be able to write the ending. Only Fenogliocan. That kind of screws up the next book. I was disappointed withthat.And, of course, the very ending. Dustfinger was NOT supposed to go backin the book. I don't care if it wasn't a happy ending! That's what thenext book is for! (Although it's not a happy ending in that either.) Iheard that originally they stayed true to the book, butpreview-screening audiences wanted a happy ending for him, so theyre-shot it. If that's true, DARN YOU, PREVIEW SCREENING AUDIENCES.Dustfinger is the tragic anti-hero! He's not supposed to have a happyending! ARGH! On a happier note, my group and friends and I practicallyscreamed with happiness when Fenoglio mentioned a new character he wasthinking up.. a master thief, stealing like a bluejay. Subtle hintingfor the next two movies?! In conclusion, I loved it, but will neverwatch the last five minutes again, and instead pretend they did it theway the book ends.

2012-05-16 14:51:58

A horrible butchering of a wonderful book.

I have seen many book to film adaptation in which, although changes have been made to the story, it still follows the spirt of the book and doesn't detract to drastically from the plot the original author had intended. Movies such as Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" saga, as well as the first two "Harry Potter" films did justice to the books from which their stories were taken. Sadly the movie "Inkheart" does not fall into this category. Quite to the contrary, the movie is a woeful travesty, and utter disappointment to anyone who has read the book. It's as if the director hadn't even read the original story. Important scenes and characters were left out, plots changed, and unneeded scenes added which detracted from the flow of the film. Changes made to the story and its characters, didn't enhance the film, rather, said changes only served to make the film "cheesy", and camp. For example, characters read out Inkheart (as well as out of other books not mentioned in the original story) by the bumbling Darius, all bare writing on their faces to symbolize there incomplete manifestation into this world. This would qualify as an unneeded addition as the villains' individual imperfections where the cause of Darius' inadequacy as a "Silvertongue." Flatnose's flat nose, and Resa's missing voice are all do to the way they were unskillfully read out of the story. In the movie, the writing on the character's faces just looks messy and ludicrous, truly an unneeded story addition. I steal, and slightly tweak, a phrase from another Paul Benttany film...Inkheat has been weighed, it has been measured, and it has most definitely been found wanting.

Neil Welch 2012-05-15 18:34:02

A star is born

Inkheart is the sort of story I love, walking a precarious line alongthe border between fantasy and reality. I haven't read the novels onwhich it is based, but I see that the author Cornelia Funke gets anexecutive producer credit, so I guess that the movie is acceptably trueto the source material, in which case I may very well seek the booksout.Mortimer "Mo" Folchart (Brendan Fraser) keeps travelling with hisdaughter Megan (Eliza Hope Bennett), trading in antique books, butsecretly searching for a copy of the scarce novel Inkheart. This isbecause he is a Silvertongue - someone who, by reading aloud, can bringthe content of a novel to life: specifically, this brings charactersfrom a book into the real world. Unfortunately each character who comesinto the real world must be replaced by a real person going into thebook, and Megan's mother Resa disappeared when Mo was reading Inkheartto Megan when she was a child. Mo hopes to read Resa back into the realworld. However, the Inkheart characters in the real world have theirown plans. And it turns out that Megan is a Silvertongue too...I really enjoyed the story, which has some nice touches - Iparticularly liked the stammering Silvertongue whose speech impedimentleaves characters with print over them because they have beenincompletely read out of the book. I would have liked to have seen moreof the world inside Inkheart, but the chasing about around the ItalianAlps is pleasingly picturesque and a little out of the ordinary,particularly for this type of movie. The effects are nicely done andserve the film well rather than overpowering it. And it's good to seeguest appearances from the Oz and Arabian Nights stories.Brendan Fraser, in his third film to be released in 2008, plays Mo withhis customary innate worthiness. I like Fraser, but he can sleepwalkthis sort of part. Paul Bettany does much better as the conflictedfire-eater Dustfinger. Andy Serkis and Helen Mirren chew the sceneryentertainingly. Sienna Guillory is a fetching Resa, and Jim Broadbenthas fun playing Inkheart's author Fenoglio.But the most exciting part of this movie is Eliza Bennett. Looking likea young Laura Dern, she holds the heart of this movie in a performancewhich conveys vulnerability and strength in equal measure. Her impacthere reminds me of Jenny Agutter in the 1970 Railway Children - anadolescent performer of great talent, showing a clear indication of theattractive adult she will soon become.I greatly enjoyed this movie, and I look forward to Miss Bennett'sfuture movies and seeing her fulfil the promise she shows here.

2012-05-15 08:32:54

A W E S O M E

I don't know how I missed this movie before but I am sure glad I have it now. This movie is AWESOME! I love it as much as the 10th kingdom! BTW, if you have never heard of the 10th Kingdom check it out! You and your family will love this movie, it has EVERYTHING!!!

2012-05-13 03:43:45

Get the audiobook instead

Inkheart is a meticulously crafted and inventive book that celebrates the power and beauty of the written word. I generally prefer reading a book myself to listening to an audiobook. It's relatively unusual that the audio treatment adds enough interest to balance out the additional time that a read-aloud takes. However, Inkheart is a book in which reading aloud is a pivotal theme; and the audiobook, narrated flawlessly by the late Lynn Redgrave, parlays that connection into a listening experience that not only matches but exceeds the experience of reading the book oneself.In contrast, this movie takes the whole experience in the opposite direction. The story is condensed and rushed, and the viewing experience is chaotic and overstimulating. I wouldn't say it's unpleasant to watch; it's just a waste of a unique piece of children's/YA literature that has so much more to offer. There's plenty of "magic," of the cheap movie thrills variety, but the true magic of Cornelia Funke's storytelling is abandoned in favor of fast-paced yet unremarkable action. Watching this first will ruin the experience one could have had with the book and/or the audiobook; and watching it after will just be disappointing. Don't bother. Get the audiobook and play it in your car the next time you take your kids on a long drive. The hours will fly by and their imaginations - and yours - will get an exhilarating workout far better than this forgettable video.

2012-05-12 21:22:39

Inkheart DVD

This review is from: Inkheart (DVD) This movie is a lot of fun! There is plenty of action and the plot I found to be quite clever. I like movies that entertain, hold my interest, and have a good ending. This movie fit the bill for me.

2012-05-09 00:40:21

A Fun Fantasy

This review is from: Inkheart (DVD) I am a fantasy movie lover and this one does not disappoint. It is fairly predictable, but I don't usually mind that. I love Brenden Fraser in just about anything. This movie has a storyline I have not seen before and I highly recommend it.

Jizdenky 2012-05-08 05:05:06

Vanishing Ink

'Inkheart' initially gave me the impression of being just anotherfantasy film. However, once the premise is presented, it becomesinteresting. The concept is intriguing but the plot is repetitive.Although it's not done to the point of ruining the movie, had thepacing been well maintained, this would have had potential of being awonderful film experience. Much of the script and its execution isquite generic. The story is also lacking in depth due to convenientplot-conclusions and there are plot holes. The ending is rushed. Manyof the characters and plot turns are poorly developed. For example, Iwould have liked to know what had actually happened to Resa and how shehad ended up there. The special effects and cinematography are passablebut I enjoyed the vibrant colours. The acting is pretty good overall.Brendan Fraser and Paul Bettany are good enough. Eliza Bennett isimpressive. Sienna Guillory is very effective in a small role. AndySerkis is fairly adequate. Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent providebrilliant comic relief. Even though the film hasn't reached itspotential, given the novel and intriguing concept, it manages to stillbe a decent entertainer for the entire family.

2012-05-07 09:13:26

A riveting movie

This review is from: Inkheart (DVD) It was so awesome and Brenden Frazier is a wonderful actor. Made it more realistic! It is like a good book, hard to put down. I have watched it over and over. I have recommended it to many of my friends and even bought as a gift for one friend.If you have ever read a good book, one where you seemed teleported to. This is exactly how you would imagine it could happen. http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m3V2KIDCR3C9G9

2012-05-07 02:17:53

I loved the books

This review is from: Inkheart (DVD) So I had read the first two books in this series and thought they were wonderful. Why directors/movie writers butcher the books when they make them into movies...I will never know. I saw Brendon Fraser on a talk show when he was promoting this film and thought it sounded interesting. Had the movie been as good as the book, maybe there would have been 3 movies. It is worth seeing if you liked the Inkheart book.

2012-04-29 08:12:43

Hard to believe this wasn't a made for TV movie.

I should have liked this movie. I'm a sci-fi and fantasy fan and can often enjoy even middle of the road quality movies in the genre. However, Inkheart was a huge let down for me and was actually painful to watch.The special effects were top notch and Brendan Frasier has some cache in the big screen fantasy genre, however, aside from these two elements it would be impossible to believe that this film saw theatrical release.The script, dialog, costumes, most of the acting, editing, physical sets, music and most of all directing had the distinctive feel of one of the poorer quality Sci-Fi channel Original movies. Made for TV all the way and a poor example of a made for TV fantasy pic to boot. The movie is a mess from beginning to end and it's the first movie in years where I've been so glad when it finally came to an end.With so much wrong with the movie, it really comes back to the director. The dialog and action were horribly directed and the framing of almost every shot was off in one way or the other. I began to imagine as the movie went along how a shot should have been framed, at what angles the action should have been filmed and how the shots should have transitioned. No, I'm not a film student or aspiring or arm chair director with jaded expectations, just a lover of movies who can discern competent direction from the amateur.The bare bones of an existing movie were there somewhere, but if any movie needed some major re-writes by some script doctor wunderkind, this was it.And a final mention for the horrible musical score. Uninspired at best, but at worst, on multiple occasions, the music was so inappropriate for what was happening on screen that I had to wonder if a non-musically inclined editor just slapped pieces of this and that randomly onto the soundtrack after their music budget came up short.Yes, this movie really is that bad. 1 1/2 stars, because I'm sure there are even worse movies out there some where.

2012-04-29 05:15:36

The kids were bug-eyed

InkheartI had my grand kids for the night and wanted something to entertain them so they picked Inkheart fron the list. A nine year old very active boy and his eleven year old sister were positivly rivited to the screen. At the end my grandson said that was Awsome and my grandaughter said, 'that was so worth it". I would recomend this for a good family movie. Enough action for movir savy kids.

Aniviel2 2012-04-26 10:21:40

Could have been better

I have read the books and it is not too bad an adaptation, except thefilm barely touches the second and third books. I thought Brendan Fraser and Andy Serkis should have been the mainstayof the film, but were in fact the weaknesses. Fraser was flat andlifeless, and Serkis felt like a pantomime villain. The star of the film for me was Paul Bettany as Dustfinger(incidentally, the book's best character, too); he was totallyconvincing and heartbreaking as the fire-dancer. Jim Broadbent did well with Fenoglio, but only because he managed toannoy me as much as the character does in the book. It would have been much, much better had Fraser injected a little morelife into Mo, and Serkis convinced as an evil villain, but it was stillwatchable.

sourcemonitor 2012-04-26 03:59:15

Even worse than Eragon

I saw the movie yesterday night and it was so wrong on so many levelsthat it "inspired" me to write my first movie comment ever. First of all, the movie is only very loosely based on the book. Majorstory features are totally different, completely new, and were probablyincluded so they could make good use of their special effects budget.The movie does NOT capture the atmosphere of the book at all. Thatwouldn't probably be a problem, if the movie was any good. It isn't. The cast is not well chosen, especially Fraser as Mo is awful. (And Ireally have no idea why Funke insisted on casting him). Mirren does agood job with her role, although she clearly doesn't look like theEleonore described in the book. When you leave out the ridiculous sceneat the end, she's by far the best about the movie.The characters aren't very interesting (except for Eleonore), there isno character development. Mo is just flat and boring, Farid is agood-looking kid probably casted for a 12-15 year old girl targetgroup. The movie doesn't even try to build up to the relationshipsbetween, e.g., Farid and Dustfinger. One moment they are strangers,next they are best buddies. The same goes for Farid and Maggie.Although there is hardly any interaction between the two the movie endswith a Hollywood flirt/love scene.Most importantly, the whole dynamic between Mo and Maggie as well asbetween Maggie and Resa is wrong. With the first I could live. An yes,of course, it's a movie not the book. However, the dynamic betweenMaggie and her mom makes no sense whatsoever and is full ofHollywood/feel-good clichés. For me personally the worst thing about this movie was: I didn't evenexpect that much!!! After seeing some first pictures on the internet,and the cast I went in with really low expectations...One last thing: I saw the German version of the movie. Bad dubbing mayhave contributed to this overall unpleasant experience. I (hopelesslynaive as I am) plan on watching it some other time in English. I REALLYhope it'll be better this way. The whole magic about the book, aboutreading aloud, actually, the whole essence of the book was not at alltransmitted in the way they shot the reading scenes.

2012-04-24 04:01:04

Lots of enjoyment

Just plain fun. Nothing the critics would like but lots of enjoyment for the audience.

2012-04-23 14:43:38

For once Brendan Fraser isn't the weak link, but this dull fantasy is nothing special anyway

I hadn't read very good notices for this, but I've got a weakness for "high fantasy", OK? Stuff with dungeons and dragons and tunnels and trolls, I dig it. Even the bad ones, I can often have a good time with. Unfortunately there have been an awful lot of bad ones lately - STARDUST and PRINCE CASPIAN threatened me to put me off the genre for a good long while. But never say never...The first problem with this German/British coproduction is that they make the mistake (from an artistic standpoint) of casting Brendan Fraser as the lead (I guess thinking about the box-office standpoint), an antiquarian book repair specialist (!!!). Why Mr. Fraser gets these roles on a regular basis is beyond me; he seems to be somebody's idea - or some several bodies' idea - of a replacement for Harrison Ford, Douglas Fairbanks, etc: the swashbuckling hero of period adventures and medieval fantasies. Except he is just about the most resolutely 21st-century presence around - everything about the guy in every film I've seen him in screams frat-boy football star at some Midwestern state school (and yes, I know he's Canadian-born) grown up now and maybe working as a car salesman. Buying him as a specialist in old books, or an archaeologist, or any character from pre-WWII automatically requires a larger suspension of disbelief than I care to make.In this case, thankfully, he's not called upon to exist in a pre-Fraser world, and in fact he is one of the less-annoying and ill-conceived aspects of this film, despite being the only character in the film (entirely set in Europe) with an American accent for no reason that is ever explained. Essentially, Fraser is Mo Folchart, a "silvertongue" - a person born with the magical talent of making books come alive when he reads aloud from them, and he's on the run in the early part of the film from some unpleasant folks who appeared out of a book that he read aloud years before and who now want him to come to their remote castle and pull riches and power for them out of his magical book-reading. He has a teenage daughter, Meg (Eliza Bennett), and a wife who disappeared when he last read aloud a decade previous; y'see, when you bring something into this world from a book, part of our world trades places with it.So a series of adventures ensues with Fraser at first trying to protect his kid and not use his powers and later joining forces with one of the less-evil characters he's brought over, Dustfinger (Paul Bettany in the only interesting performance in the film). At the end we have a big ol' special effects showdown and all the good guys are safe and the bad guys vanquished - hey this is a kid's fantasy, I'm not spoiling anything.Flat both dialog- and action-wise, directed by Iaian Softely without panache, betraying it's relatively low budget (less than $50 million) and full of all kinds of quite vast logical errors - Folchart has to locate a copy of the very rare book that exchanged his wife for all the baddies, astonishingly named "Inkheart", but has never once in a decade thought to try to find the author? - this is nevertheless reasonably tolerable, as the actors are all professional if not interesting (even Helen Mirren has little to do) and the locations and sets are nice enough to look at. And I liked the concept though it doesn't strike me as terribly original. By all accounts the book is better - I'll probably check that out at some point.

2012-04-21 00:15:08

Good movie for the whole family!

This review is from: Inkheart (DVD) I have never read the book this movie is based upon, but, as a movie, it's still quite good and should be fun for the whole family to watch. All the actors are great in their roles and the settings are imaginative, as well. Hopefully, since there are more books in the series, we might get to see them on the screen, too.

lovecedu 2012-04-20 10:57:05

amazing film, not quite sure why people criticise it.

So as i usually do i come on IMDb to put the films i rented into orderfrom highest ranking to lowest and surprisingly this film was rankedlowest. I couldn't believe it so i stuck my middle finger to the screenand stuck the DVD in.so anyway, I cant find many things to fault this film. I loved thestory and to me the characters were believable and not cliché(there isa difference). the story progressed nicely and the fantasy elementswere smoothly brought in. not once did i stop and think "how the helldid that happen?" which helps to stay in the story.It remained magically believable and of course the concept of the filmis pretty interesting. everyone prefers their imagination to realityand this film lets you wander around your imagination for nearly twohours, so how can it be bad... lets not forget Jennifer Connelly is init... so comon...All in all, this film was extremely entertaining with quite a few coolmoments and will be loved by everyone.In conclusion i didn't care so much about being right about this film,what can i say.. im used to it ;)