Cornelia Funke?s best-selling novel, INKHEART, comes to life in director Iain Softley?s (THE SKELETON KEY, THE WINGS OF THE DOVE) feature-film adaptation of the same name. For 12 years, bookbinder Mo (Brendan Fraser) and his daughter, Meggie (Eliza Hope Bennett), have been traveling the world, poking around secondhand bookstores. Meggie correctly assumes that her father is looking for her mother, Resa (Sienna Guillory), who disappeared without a trace. What Meggie doesn?t know is that Mo is a Silvertongue, and when he reads a story aloud, the details and characters come to vivid life. But when a character comes out of a book, someone has to go back in, and Mo is searching a copy of the book, titled “Inkheart,” into which Resa literally disappeared. When Mo read the story aloud, unaware of his powers, she was sucked into the story, and the fantastical novel?s villainous characters were released. Now, Mo and Meggie have to keep evil Capricorn and his henchmen from realizing their diabolical plot, and send everyone back where they belong.

INKHEART is awash with colorful details. Capricorn has had to make do with a stuttering Silvertongue who delivers characters that are half-read: text from the book is tattooed on their faces, or they suffer some other malady, emerging from the book mute or with an odd physical feature. Paul Bettany is engaging as Dustfinger, a character who desperately wants to be read back into “Inkheart” and return to his family, portrayed by Bettany?s real-life love, Jennifer Connelly, in a miss-her-if-you-blink performance. Helen Mirren is good fun as eccentric, feisty bibliophile Aunt Elinor, and Jim Broadbent appears as the novel?s author, who is enthralled by the possibilities of Mo?s gift. (1 hr. 43 min.)

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