I must say, Brendan Fraser has come a long way from Friends, at least insofar as his career in cinema is concerned. He has become somewhat the action film star, with his starring role in the three very successful Mummy films as well as The Journey to the Center of the Earth. While he is certainly no Harrison Ford in terms of either catalog depth or overall on screen persona, he has certainly developed quite a nice little niche, at least in regards to light, humorous action adventure films. Inkheart just happens to be another one of those types of films.
Film
I had not seen Inkheart in the theater and knew nothing about the film before I saw down to check it out for this review. While it is far from a great film, I was a good bit of fun and well worth a look.
The film stars Brendan Fraser as Mortimer Folchart, a silver tongue, who is able to bring characters and events to life out of a book, simply by reading them out loud. He was not aware that he had that talent until he began to read the little known book Inkheart out loud one night with his new wife and their infant daughter. When a character leaps to life out of a book, it does come at a cost, as someone else must take that person’s place in the book. Unfortunately for Mortimer, his wife was the one pulled into the book that evening. Mortimer then spends the next 12 years searching the globe for a another copy of the Inkheart book as part of an effort to recover his wife, all the while being chased and pursued by characters in the book, either looking to be read back into the book or looking to recover even more evil persons and entities from the book.
The film also stars Eliza Hope as Mortimers’ 12 year old daughter Meggie who gets caught up in the plans of the evil and sinister character Capricorn to have the evil Shadow read out of the book to help him rule the world. The film also stars Paul Bettany, Andy Serkis, Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent. The film is based on the best-selling book of the same name by Cornelia Funke. I can’t say that the film has any truly scary moments and feel that it is fit for the entire family despite its PG rating. If you are looking for an action adventure fantasy film that the whole family, including young children can enjoy, please check out Inkheart. Recommended as a rental only.
Video
Well, if you are looking for a bright, bold and colorful film, you will not find Inkheart to be all that thrilling. The film features a fairly natural color palette that is a bit undersaturated and muted. While the black levels are solid, I would not go so far as describe them as being deep, falling a good level short of the deep and inky blacks that are the hallmarks of the best looking films on Blu-ray. As a result, the film lacks the depth and three dimensionality of the best looking films on Blu-ray, although I would not go so far as describe the image as appearing flat.
Overall detail and shadow detail is quite good but again falls a good bit short of the best looking films. Watching this film, I kept wishing for better blacks and a more vibrant and better saturated color palette and a bit more detail and overall clarity. Given that this is an action adventure fantasy film, I expected a better overall use of color. However, if you enjoyed this film in the theater, I am sure that you will be more than pleased with the look of this film on this Blu-ray release.
Audio
It is interesting that the audio on this release suffers from the same issues that the colors do on the video side. Where the colors are muted and undersaturated, I would describe the audio as being polite and restrained, lacking the dynamics of the better encodes and one that is more keeping with an action/adventure film. There is a good bit to like about the audio. The dialogue track is well recorded and placed in the mix. In addition, the overall sound is smooth and full.
The surround speakers are also actively engaged during most of the film, providing a nice sense of immersion. However, I would the overall transparency and imaging to be not what I had expected. The explosions and sound effects sound a bit flat and restrained, utterly lacking in any real sense of dynamics with below par bass response. Given that this is a full lossless encode featuring Dolby True HD, I had really expected a more robust aural experience.
Special Features
The folks at New Line are to be commended for providing not only a digital copy of the film with this release but a DVD copy as well. Both are included on the same disc which is included along with the Blu-ray disc in this two disc release. The digital copy is compatible with both Macs and PCs. The rest of the extras are frankly, not all that interesting. Included are 9 deleted scenes and a few brief featurettes.
One of the featurettes is entitled Eliza Reads to Us and features the actress, Eliza Bennett sharing one of her favorite passages from the book which is not featured in the film. Also included is A Story from the Cast and Crew-Playing the Game Tell Me a Story, where the author, Cornelia Funke starts the cast and crew off with the line “I discovered the hole under my bed on my 13th birthday” for which each member of the cast and crew is asked to supply the next line, one after another, in succession, after which they have a rather inventive short story.
Also feature is From Imagination to the Page: How Writers Write where Cornelia Funke describes her creative processes. The release is also BD-Live enabled featuring a commentary by Director Iain Softley. While the Tell me a story featurette is fairly creative, the rest of the extras are not really all the interesting. You aren’t really missing all that much if you skip them entirely.
Final Thoughts
While the audio and video here are both a bit disappointing , I did enjoy the film. If you are looking for a family friendly action adventure fantasy film, check out Inkheart. Recommended as a rental only.
