Inkheart: The Movie Review or "Oh crap, maybe I shouldn't have read..."

Inkheart - 2008 Movie

Distributed by "New Line Cinema"
Directed by Iain Softley
Based upon the book "Inkheart" by Cornelia Funke

I mentioned having a fond memory of this film in my first posting for today. I did since it was a film I enjoyed when I watched it upon my first sitting with it. This time I have to say that I was not as easily entertained with it and it was purely because I had read the book. The book has soiled my love of this film unfortunately. This would be a case of having a fond memory of something and having it stripped away because you are more mature or grown up than when you watched it the first time. 

The reason that I had an issue with this film was because the aspects that were changed made almost little to not sense in regards to storytelling. They did not add and in many respects they made certain characters either weaker or appear meaner than they were in the original work. Funke spent a lot of time creating characters that had layers to them and this film seemed to strip that all away. 

The character that I felt they really screwed up with this film was the character of Dustfinger (played by Paul Bettany):

In the book he felt like he had one singular purpose and you understood that was his motivating factor for his actions, but in the film it feels like his actions sometimes are just to be mean. They lack true motivation because scenes that allowed you access to that emotional side of her were stripped from the movie. These scenes could have easily been added to the film as well without taking away from any important element that they created, but alas they did not which made this character suffer greatly. He was not the same character, which was through no fault of the actor. This was just poor writing choices on the part of the writers of the film. 

Another character that felt like it was greatly weakened by the writing of the film was the character of Mo, which was the primary character for much of the book. Mo was played by Brendan Fraser, whom you can see in the picture above. His character was a backbone of the book and here it felt like he was a weakling that had to rely on others instead of being a strong character that had previously went up against the evil Capricorn. This I do somewhat fault the actor for because I do not feel that he fit in with the other chosen cast. There was a "British" feel to this film and this was definitely felt with the stylistic choices of the film and the vast majority of casting decisions, but then it was like they threw a dart at a dart board on who the main casting choice for Mo should be and only went with prominent American male actors of the time. He did not fit well with the film and due to this the film suffered. I have enjoyed Brendan Fraser in other works, but this simply was not his best film work. 

There was also an omitted story that I felt would have added much to making Capricorn into a much more evil character. I do not want to spoil too much for those that may want to read the book eventually, but it involves this character, Mortola:

The inclusion of her missing story would have greatly added a needed element to the entire overall plot to show has dastardly and evil Capricorn was. I feel like they took the best parts of the book and stripped them out and kept all of the worse elements, which is saying something because in my mind there were no bad elements to the actual book. The good elements, however, were changed in drastic ways, such as in the film "The Wizard of Oz" for some reason was used instead of other stories. "The Wizard of Oz" was, as far as I recall, never used in the book and definitely not in the ways that it is used here. These changes did not do the movie any favors, so I am not sure why these choices were made. 

Overall, I have to say that I wish I had not went back and watched the film afterwards because I can now say that I will probably never watch this film again. The fond memory of this was erased for me because now I can see the flaws that were contained within it. This is fine though because sometimes we do develop our senses and our love of something may change as a result of growing. I feel that this is the case with this particular film, but I now have a deep appreciation for the book. This I did not have before, so I guess I just traded one for the other, which is fine by me. I like books more anyways ;-) hehe

WHO I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS FILM TO: Fantasy lovers, Book Lovers, People who have not read the book, and those that enjoy Brendan Fraser.

WHO I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS FILM TO: People who have read the book, People who do not like overly "British" feeling films,  and Fantasy Haters as this is purely fantasy through and through.

Here is the trailer for "Inkheart" if you want to see it:

My next post will be on Saturday and is a VIDEO contiuation of 

"The New To Booktube" Tag!!!

You can purchase Inkheart- The Movie at

Amazon

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Half Price Books

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https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/59000535-cassandra-winters

You can also check out these great blogs:

Collectors' Universe- collectorsuniverse.blogspot.com

Green Plastic Squirt Gun- greenplasticsquirtgun.blogspot.com/

Thank you for coming to the library... I hope you check me out again soon!