Inkheart
Review - Kathryn Ryan for The Mungles on Movies
Nothing beats a good book. Curled up in a chair, wrapped up in a blanket, opening the front cover of a book, this is the way an adventure starts. An adventure is waiting on every page. From dragons to spaceships, rafts to submarines, there is a book out there for everyone. It is just a matter of finding it. In today's fast-paced and electronically controlled society, it is a rare sight to see a person reading. But there is a fine line between not reading enough and reading too much, Inkheart walks along that fine line.
Inkheart is a story about a special kind of person known as a 'Silvertongue'. They have a power that whenever they read a book out loud, the story comes to life. The central character Mo (Brendan Fraser) is traveling through Europe with his daughter Meggie (Eliza Bennet) trying to find a rare book called Inkheart. One night, many years ago, Mo was reading a copy of this very book out loud to his baby daughter and wife. He did not know that he was a 'Silvertongue' and suddenly the evil villain from the book, Capricorn (Andy Serkis), comes to life in their living room, which then in turn imprisons his wife in the book. From that day forward, Meggie and Mo are in search of the book, trying to right the horrible wrong and put Capricorn back where he belongs, before Capricorn unleashes an evil far greater than imagination.
With so much to tell in such a short amount of time, Inkheart has a rushed storyline. People frantically running, it is quite an exhausting movie to keep up with at points. Besides this attitude the movie has, it is wonderful. The symbolism in it is actually quite strong. At one point, Mo and Meggie go to the author (Jim Broadbent) of Inkheart to try and see if they can have one of his copies. They also bring along one of his characters from the book to prove that their story is true. The character is named Dustfinger (Paul Bettany) and in the book he is the central character who dies at the end of the novel. The author is so pleased to see him and feels such love for what he has created. Dustfinger shows him only disdain for having him die at the end of the story and yells at the author that he will change his ending. This whole conflict correlates well with the relationship of God and man. The struggle of wanting to change what God has set.
This movie is rated PG for fantasy adventure, a few scary moments, and brief mild language. The scary moments might be too much for a seven year-old child. Inkheart shows the audience that literature has power and that your imagination is a magical key to a world only you can unlock. I give this movie 3 and a half out of five leather-bound books. Reading is power, and this movie proves it is a force to be reckoned with. |
