INKHEART is a German co-production for the fact that the film is based on the German Cornelia Funke’s popular book.  Her story involves the best that fantasy tales have to offer – a hero and dame in distress, mythical creatures, magic and most of all, a possibility of sequels if this film makes money at the box-office.

Mo Folchart (Brendan Fraser proving to be the new most popular action hero) is a silver tongue – one who has the talent to bring characters in and out of books when reading them aloud.  The dame in distress is Mo’s wife, Resa. She has disappeared into the book of INKHEART when Mo read aloud the words to their daughter, Eliza (Meggie Bennett) when she was a child.  Now, he is on a quest to find another copy of the book in order to rescue Resa (Sienna Guillory) back to real life.  The adventures take them to the villain of the piece, Capricorn (Andy Serkis – Gollum from THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy), who now lives in a grand castle with his henchmen and a beautiful mute captive.

As the villain Capricorn utters in the movie: “Why would I want to return into the book as I have everything in the human’s world including this castle”, the real star of the film is the castle where INKHEART was filmed.  Fortunately, this humble reviewer had the good chance of staying 2 nights in this castle during his Europe back-packing Europe days when the castle doubled as a youth hostel.  INKHEART was shot in the northern seaside village of Ligure, which is the perfect location for the film.  With mountains on one side, the sea on the other and as real castle with hundreds of steps to reach its entrance, this is fairy tale land at its best.

Softley’s film feels like the typical swashbuckling matinee movies of the past in which action and high adventure was of highlight of the day.  Humour is light but effective.  Take Capricorn’s logic for capturing Mo, “Need more riches as we have already bled the locals dry.” But INKHEART also benefits from the superior performances from its supporting cast, especially Paul Bettany (Brit actor who rose to fame with his leading role in the never released in North America GANGSTER No. 1) and Oscar Winner Helen Mirren as Aunt Eleanor.  Bettany took his supporting role of Dustfinger, the fire-eater transported out of the book away from his wife and family to new heights.  Softley plays it right with the gamble of ending the film with Dustfinger’s return back into his land.

Unlike the complicated fantasy, GOLDEN COMPASS, INKHEART is a more straight forward tale easily followed on-screen.  Still, Funke’s book contains a multitude of characters – too many for the script (by David Lindsay-Abaire) or Softley to concentrate on.  At one point in the film, the viewer is taken on a tour of the castle’s stables where strange creatures from other books like the Minotaur, unicorn and flying monkeys are introduced.  For a 106 minute film, Softley and crew have done well summarizing the material – action, adventure, spectacle, humour, tears with a bit of a teen romance thrown in - with a film that ends more than satisfactory with a full pyrotechnics CGI effects climax that includes the burning castle.  For the soft at heart, the script ensures, in the words of Aunt Eleanor, a teary-eyed happy ending.

Unfortunately, INKHEART, based on the premise of the talent of Mo Folchart which like that of the Christmas Adam Sandler Disney movie BEDTIME STORIES, also has characters jump out of the books the hero reads aloud, arrives a few weeks after and after the holiday season.  Hopefully, audiences will realise that the two films are vastly different with INKHEART clearly the better film.