Daughter #2 and I went out to see Inkheart this morning and it was great! Frankly I've managed to "take a pass" on the last 3-4 movies that The Girls have gone to (Hotel for Dogs, Mall Cop, Marley & Me, and Bolt most recently), but wanted to see this one, and I was not disappointed.Somehow I'd missed that this was a Brendan Frasier movie, but he wasn't as one-note ("the exasperated guy") as in most of the things I've seen him in. I also never encountered anything about the book, so the premise was reasonably fresh. What's that premise, you ask? Well, that there are these certain types of people out there who are called "silvertongues", and when they read a story, it manifests to some extent. However, there is a catch, if a character manifests from the book, a real person from this world gets sucked in there.
Now, there are some "suspension of disbelief" challenges in this film, like, for instance, how does the main character make it to his 20's or 30's without stumbling over this power? One would think that he'd have discovered, say, Shakespearean characters wandering around at the same time some of his classmates went missing, or something like that. But, no ... it seems that it didn't get noticed by him until he attempted to read stories to his infant daughter, and then not even at first. Again, one wonders how "stuff" appearing from stories didn't draw attention enough to play connect-the-dots for a few years, as it appears that it wasn't until the kid was four or five or so before "things got complicated".
The book being read at that point in time was called "Inkhart" (hence the movie's title), and it features some Very Bad Villains, some of the "thuggery" persuasion, and some of a supernatural variety (and, unless I'm very much mistaken, there is a "plot line" continuity issue on this point, but I could be wrong). Now, most of this "backstory" is dealt with in flashbacks, so there isn't much solid "mythic" foundation, and the story line picks up with him and his now-teen daughter running around Europe searching for a copy of a book, while being chased/followed by various folks.
Not to give away too much, there are numerous out-of-book characters, critters, and situations that pop up, some rather humorously (like when they're looking for a major distraction and he's handed a copy of a book and told a page number ... resulting in a famous fictional weather event).
There are several loose ends left hanging (one I was certain was going to get at least 15 seconds at the end, but didn't), perhaps enough for a sequel (and I just looked, and this is the first book of a trilogy), but they were somewhat irritating going in "cold".
Anyway, for a "book person" this is a can't-miss film ... it's very well done, engaging, and has (aside from the "huh?" moments noted above) none of the things which I dislike in movies!