Inkheart - Heartbreaking

Today, I bring to you a review of the fairly recently released movie, Inkheart.

Inkheart (PG, 2009) (●●●○○)

This movie is based off a book by the same title, which I've read once myself, and been read once again by another.

The acting was pretty good. The scenery was good, occasionally. The plot may have been good, but I read the book, and so, I must say it's nothing better than twisted. The amount they think they had to change to make it into a movie was appalling. This is the sort of movie I woe having ever been made, because it doesn't conform to the book in the degree, or perhaps sense, that I'd love it to. It seriously would have been better if they made a movie straight from the book, word for word, action for action. It wouldn't matter if they had to make it in two, three, four movies, it would have been better than this. Easily.

There are so many things wrong with what happens in it that I don't feel like typing them all in. The vague relationship begun in the first book between Meggie and Farid is made so absent, when it comes to indication of either party caring the slightest bit about each other, that they could have cared as much for each other as a turtle cares for a titmouse. Except for vague indications from certain other characters, it would be hard, having not read the book, to realize that Farid liked Meggie.

There were many parts of the book that I would have literally loved to have in the movie, but were not there. Why? They didn't have to cut, nay, mince the plot of the book, take a smidgen of the real thing, dress it in special effects, and present it on the silver screen as if we are meant to like it.

Dustfinger. Take him, just for a second. They showed one, short, short, short scene with him breathing fire. It was cool, sure. But in the book, there were at least two scenes where he breathed fire, one of which was probably minutes
long in anybody's imagination.

Capricorn. He's evil. He's evil. He's evil. So don't make him basically joke about duct tape! It may be funny, but, in the book, you never, ever, ever got the impression, I think, that he liked joking in such a way. He'd joke about slitting peoples' throats, burning down farms with inhabitants included, but duct tape? Excuse me. He's evil.

The beginning of the book, now that I read it again, seems vaguely childish, but it was, compared to the movie's beginning, priceless. There's so much in the beginning that means so much in the story.

Mo. He gave the secret away way, way, way too easily. This has something to do with the previous point, but, still.

In the book, too, there was throughout a true show of the love of books. Elinor wasn't strict enough. We just saw one or two of Mo's bookkeeping tools. We never saw him "doctoring" a book. Meggie didn't have her book box. Their home was also almost totally excluded, which is a huge loss. Their home was a library. And it was their home. Being that most of you probably have lived in a home, that ought to mean something to you.

The ending was an ending. In the book, there were things truly unresolved. In the movie? Everyone went home happy. I don't even think of it as a fairy tale, but the "happily ever ending" bit with fairy tales applies quite well to the movie. The ending of the book let there be a sequel. The ending of the movie means, if there's a sequel, it will, when it comes to plot, have to be more horrible than the first.

My advice? Get the books back out and read them, cover to cover.

UPDATE: Sigh. I keep forgetting when things happen.

Your highly impressionable, book-toting, and slightly movie-bashing writer,


!Noah!