Every story ever written is just waiting to become real.
Mo has the special talent to bring characters out of books. One night he brings out three characters from Inkheart, a story set in medieval times and filled with magical beings. Capricorn and Basta, two villains, and Dustfinger, a fire-eater. Now, 10 years later Meggie discovers the truth and it's up to her to escape Capricorn's evil grasp.
Genre(s): Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Runtime: 106 minutes
Rating: 6.1/10 (9,882 votes)
Release Date: 11 December 2008
Country: Germany, UK, USA
Languages: English
Company: Internationale Filmproduktion Blackbird Dritte
Sound: Dolby Digital, DTS, SDDS
MPAA: Rated PG for fantasy adventure action, some scary moments and brief language.
Director(s): Iain Softley
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Producer(s):
Toby Emmerich - executive producer
Cornelia Funke - producer
Ute Leonhardt - line producer
Andrew Licht - executive producer (as Andy Licht)
Ileen Maisel - executive producer
Ileen Maisel - producer
Mark Ordesky - executive producer
Diana Pokorny - producer
Iain Softley - producer
Writer(s):
David Lindsay-Abaire - (screenplay)
Cornelia Funke - (novel)
Cast:
Brendan Fraser - Mo 'Silvertongue' Folchart
Sienna Guillory - Resa
Eliza Bennett - Meggie Folchart (as Eliza Hope Bennett)
Richard Strange - Antiquarian Bookshop Owner
Paul Bettany - Dustfinger
Helen Mirren - Elinor Loredan
Rafi Gavron - Farid
Matt King - Cockerell
Steve Speirs - Flatnose
Jamie Foreman - Basta
Music: Javier Navarrete
Toby Emmerich - executive producer
Cornelia Funke - producer
Ute Leonhardt - line producer
Andrew Licht - executive producer (as Andy Licht)
Ileen Maisel - executive producer
Ileen Maisel - producer
Mark Ordesky - executive producer
Diana Pokorny - producer
Iain Softley - producer
Writer(s):
David Lindsay-Abaire - (screenplay)
Cornelia Funke - (novel)
Cast:
Brendan Fraser - Mo 'Silvertongue' Folchart
Sienna Guillory - Resa
Eliza Bennett - Meggie Folchart (as Eliza Hope Bennett)
Richard Strange - Antiquarian Bookshop Owner
Paul Bettany - Dustfinger
Helen Mirren - Elinor Loredan
Rafi Gavron - Farid
Matt King - Cockerell
Steve Speirs - Flatnose
Jamie Foreman - Basta
Music: Javier Navarrete
Posted on: January 8, 2009
April 16th, 2009
Finally a movie about Inktheart
! Most of the time I am reallydisappointed about these kind of films but this one is very nicelydone. Definitely a must c if you read the book! I read the bookInktheart and I was quite satisfied with this movie, it's a long timeago I read the book so maybe you'll think different. Also I think theacting was very nicely done on dustfinger. They could have make themovie a lot longer tough, many parts from the book where skipped andthe movie certainly gives the feeling that you are rushing true thestory. Give it an 8! There is a second book, so I'm waiting for thesecond movie! ps: sorry for my English, and why the hell does thiscomment has to be 10 lines?
April 18th, 2009
Cornelia Funke, German novelist and children's book writer, supposedlyhad Brendan Fraser in mind when she wrote this story. OK. Is BrendanFraser a big star in Germany? I can imagine having John Malkovich or AlPacino in mind when writing a book – but Fraser? Hmm..
Funke, who wrote The Thief Lord and Die Wilden Huhner, based this storyon a simple idea: characters come to life from books when read by aspecific someone. After about an hour into the film I totally lost theplot. Such a simple idea, and being unable to tell a good story aroundit makes it remarkably pale and thin. I didn't understand and didn'tcare for all the characters that were 'read' out of the book, some werehappy, others wanted to go back into the book. First there was only oneperson who could bring characters to life, then all of a sudden therewere three.
Then there was the writer of the book (who didn't have one copy of it)- then there was an evil creature. And what was the old woman's purposeon the motorbike? Eliza Bennet, who is cute, doesn't fit the role of abeautiful princess (as a tomboy like she played in the Contractor sheshined) seems to be equipped with only one (1!) facial expression. Acry face. Even when she smiled she couldn't hide it.
Javier Navarrete, usually a very solid composer, created one of themost bland and unidentifiable scores of his career. Knitted togethersome little tatters to a gray mass of boring sostenuto.
Nope. Overall, this is not a great movie and could have been so muchbetter. You may avoid.
April 19th, 2009
I only watched this movie because the trailer looked new and the ideawas an interesting one. I liked the movie but throughout the firsthalf, you get the feeling that there is something big coming up and youjust can't wait till it does. The ending was quite satisfactoryconsidering what happens.
The actors were all well chosen for the roles they portray. The badguys led by the evil Capricorn fulfill their role as a motley crew.There is a hidden humor amongst them which does not bore. The CGIanimations were very well done especially the magical creatures andalike.
Overall, I would say that if you like Stardust, you will enjoy thisone. Although, Stardust is still better in my opinion.
I give it 6 only because the first half drags on a bit long and takessometime to move onto the real story.
April 20th, 2009
Another of those ever popular fantasy stories are borough to the bigscreen. The premise is the most exciting thing here. In this one thevillains comes from a fantasy book into the real world to face theprotagonists, and not the other way around. Its a neat idea. But as thestory unfolds, Inkheart quickly turns into a substandard search andfind adventure.
To work this film definitely needed better characters or a betterstory. Dustfinger was the only character with any considerabledevelopment, but even so, i was ambivalent about him. The part where hedecides NOT to tell Mo about his wife being in the castle worked incontext of his character, to a degree, but it also felt like aconvenient excuse to take the story down a detour, witch could havebeen forgivable, if this detour was interesting to begin with.
The dad and his daughter work because they are archetypes andprotagonists. But there is nothing noteworthy about them, acting orscriptwise.
The worst character is Farid. I haven seen a character come so totallyout of the blue and then tag along for no apparent reason sense Jar JarBinks crashed into Starwars, and Farid is almost as annoying. There aresome hamfisted attempts at humour sorroung his character that reallyannoyed me.
The book hugging grandmother that decides to storm a castle with herbike also falls under the annoying category.
As for the authour? Lets not even go there.
If you're into this genre (like me) you might as well satisfy yourcuriosity and watch it, the film is colorful and features somebeautiful locations and the effects are generally good. The camera-workstands out throughout the film. Nice framing and who ever handles itknows how to more around with it at the right places too.
The ending sort of pulls a rabbit out of a hat though.
April 21st, 2009
I don't really know why did i exactly see this movie in first place,when Brendan Fraser is starring in a movie it's always childish andkind of dreadful to me, although he did make a few exceptions like 'TheMummy' and sequels. So i decided to watch this movie after all and iwas apparently disappointed again. Story is somehow original but verybadly told and interpreted to viewers in a most boring and cheesy way.I never knew that when you use so many different characters from thebooks that should make an interesting all-around movie it can go sowrong as it did with 'Inkheart'. Nice name for a movie also, in myopinion this film had every potential to be something good,entertaining and enjoyable, but in the end it came out to be a drag,only viewers who can like this film are those who ignore or don't evensee the flaws in acting and bad storytelling, and by that i mean thatthis movie can only be watchable to audience of kids who are less than12 years old…
April 24th, 2009
such a wonderful actress and she gets what??!! 20 seconds of acting??
she didn't do even a line!! .. i don't get it, do they hope for asequel or is this it??..
other than that, to predictable movie, good for children but a big nono for grown people seeking something more mind boggling stuff..
Acting was good but script was really bad, just made you want to timetravel back into the past in order to kill yourself because you madethe decision to watch this mediocrity..
If the kid is supposed to be able to read herself out of this difficultsituation then what is she waiting for?? and him for that matter? ..
By the way, there was no dilemma talking about are the charactersreally alive since they live only to the end of the book, how long istheir live-5 hours, 5 days?? cheers, ..
p.s. : Jenn, i am so sorry you did this movie.. i mean what the hellwoman are you doing??..
May 1st, 2009
InkHeart featured a trailer which gave out the key plots of themovie,but what took me to watch the movie was the star cast,the reviewsof the book and the concept by itself.I am an ardent fan of Fantasy,butinkheart i would say lost its tracks from the beginning and did not getto see the Wizard of Oz.The main thing being a complete absence ofsuspense(in the movie's point of view) and a very poor screenplay.I wasall laughs for awkward dialogues given to some lead characters as theirreactions to some situations was pretty well overdone. The CGI elementswhere really good,and the SoundTrack i would say was job well done,butin no way could they lend their hand to the messed up movie which ifound way too difficult to sit through the entire run time. InkHeartdid not leave a drop of ink in my heart.I would recommend this moviefor only fans of the book to see their characters come alive and no oneelse!
May 6th, 2009
Great – what a poorly done movie. I am a person who adores any kind ofliterature and loves good movies. The film being an adaptation of afantasy trilogy that I haven't read, and the movie itself promising aninteresting story that just advertises for the old paper medium, I justhad to rent it on DVD to give it a shot. I should have rented thebooks, I assume.
There was no tension present over the whole length of 102 minutes,since the story just drags on an on without ever catching theaudience's interest. This is mainly due to its poorly executedcharacters and uninteresting actors. Biggest disappointment was AndySerkis, who totally failed giving birth to the story's main villain.Adding to this major flaw, a terrible script that is even outdone bymost TV series nowadays helps to oppress any magic that might wanted tobe conjured to the screen. Even the CGI effects were badly done – andtoo rare to be even worth mentioning. Yet concerning the genre of thismovie and the possibilities of its source material, some nicely doneCGI effects were the least fans could have expected. And, mostsignificantly, since it completely fails to conjure any magic to thescreen, CGI might have helped to create at least a visual spectacle -like many other mediocre movies do.
All in all it deserves 2 stars out of 10 for being totallyuninteresting and boring, to a point even annoying. And all thisthough, sadly enough, I do love books and movies…
June 3rd, 2009
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.