Inkheart

Review By Phil Gray

‘Step away from the book, sir, hands behind your back and up against the wall’. The book police are in town, or at least they would be if Cornelia Funke’s book, Inkheart, was real. Mo ‘Silvertongue’ Folchart has been banned from reading out loud. Not because he has a really annoying voice, or a lisp, or doesn’t know how to pronounce tomato. He doesn’t read out loud because when he does book characters come out of the book and into the real world. Now doesn’t that sound exciting, yes, it does sound exciting; unfortunately I’m being ironic. The excitement stops shortly after the whole premise of bringing story book characters to life. I’m warning you now, this is the first book I’ve had a fight with. I actually punched it because I got so frustrated with the stupid characters and lame dialogue. The book came off better than me, I had to put my hand in ice (it’s quite a thick book).

The news doesn’t get any better, it’s a trilogy. Three books of lame dialogue and drippy characters. Maybe the real magic got lost in translation as the author, Cornelia Funke, is German and the book was originally written in German. Then again, I’ve read All Quiet on the Western Front, that was translated from German and that was awesome. Putting the translation problems aside, the book at its heart is a travelling adventure romp suited, in my opinion, to teenage girls. The daughter protagonist, Meggie Folchart, will keep teenage girls interested enough, until they grow out of My Little Pony. Like any girl hitting her teenage years, Meggie Folchart is gradually pulled out of her childhood by the general weirdness of the world around her. Her abilities (making book characters come alive) kick in shortly after being scared to death by some scary story book people.

Got any silly putty or play doh? I’ve invented a new game; it’s called ‘Bendy Brendon Fraser Face’. Catchy, eh? All you need is a film DVD or Blu-ray staring Brendon Fraser, such as Inkheart and some material you can mold with (even blu-tack will do). Pause the film at an opportune moment, when Brendon Fraser is using his special jowl power. Then as quickly as you can, remake that face with your preferred craft material. See if your friends can guess which film your ‘Bendy Brendon Fraser Face’ comes from! I used the scene just after Meggie Folchart (played by Eliza Bennett) says ‘My mother? What’s this got to do with my mother?’. It’s about nine minutes and three seconds into the film and it’s a classic (recreate the same masterpiece I made).

After all that fun, the film suffers from lame dialogue and lack lustre acting. True, as a child you’ll probably be able to overlook these flaws but as adult you’ll be asking for your money back. Capricorn the main villain (played by Andy Serkis) is about as scary as a handful of rainbows and gum drop flavoured care bears. His threatening behaviour doesn’t work, he was fantastic as Golem in The Lord of the Rings and very convincing in King Kong, but in Inkheart he’s a bit of a potato. Actually if you pause Inkheart, when there’s a close up of Andy Serkis’s face, you can make an evil looking Mr Potato Head out of your left over craft material. The only redeeming character in this film is Dustfinger (played by Paul Bettany), his scars look real and he can blow a fireball out of his left nostril.

By now you’re probably asking which could be better out of this lame attempt at entertainment. I don’t know if I can gather my strength enough to compare the two different mediums. The book has only one scene that rang true with me and made me actually care about the characters. It’s the short chapter named Going Home, it’s the part when Elinor Loredan (the book crazed aunt) comes home and finds all of her books have been destroyed. The emotion in that scene nearly made me forgive all lameness that surrounded it. It’s sad because the book could have been so good. Having a quote from a (better) real book at the beginning of each chapter doesn’t help either, as it highlights the rubbish that you’re reading. If only I was a teenage girl maybe I could enjoy it.

Yes, that means I’ve decided the film is better than the book. Not because I lost in a fight with the book (we've made up now and are going out for hot chocolate next week). It’s due to the fact that Paul Bettany (Dustfinger) and his little furry horned friend can act. Paul Bettany has done an amazing fete of making lame dialogue and bad story plotting reasonably interesting. Plus watching him spin fire is kind of cool. I wish I could do that. Instead I’m going to find more films with Brendon Fraser in so I can continue playing ‘Bendy Brendon Fraser Face’. I think Bedazzled will be next.