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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
58
Adam Resurrected
64
Appaloosa
69
Ashes of Time Redux
68
August Evening
54
Battle in Seattle
75
Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
70
Black Balloon, The
55
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
51
Breakfast with Scot
xx
Cargo 200
44
Chandni Chowk to China
63
Changeling
64
Che
56
Cherry Blossoms
84
Christmas Tale, A
93
Class, The
38
Dark Streets
58
Defiance
42
Donkey Punch
xx
Dostana
62
Duchess, The
46
Dukes, The
63
Eden
xx
Extreme Movie
69
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26
Filth and Wisdom
28
Fireproof
80
Frost/Nixon
43
Gardens of the Night
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
39
Good
54
Good Dick
30
Guitar, The
84
Happy-Go-Lucky
31
Hounddog
21
House of the Sleeping Beauties
50
How About You
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Hunger
72
I Served the King of England
70
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40
Igor
79
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64
JCVD
65
Just Another Love Story
xx
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89
Man on Wire
70
Moscow, Belgium
36
My Name Is Bruce
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Nobel Son
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Not Easily Broken
64
Nothing But the Truth
79
Of Time and the City
40
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Otto; or Up with Dead People
75
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56
Religulous
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Repo! The Genetic Opera
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RocknRolla
65
Scott Walker: 30 Century Man
82
Secret of the Grain, The
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Silent Light
86
Slumdog Millionaire
57
Special
82
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
67
Synecdoche, New York
82
Tell No One
68
Theater of War
68
Timecrimes
83
Trouble the Water
43
Tru Loved
83
U2 3D
90
Waltz with Bashir
59
We Are Wizards
81
Wendy and Lucy
71
What Doesn't Kill You
55
What Just Happened?
61
Where God Left His Shoes
40
While She Was Out
81
Wrestler, The
48
Yonkers Joe
93
Class, The
90
Waltz with Bashir
89
Man on Wire
86
Slumdog Millionaire
84
Christmas Tale, A
84
Happy-Go-Lucky
83
Trouble the Water
83
U2 3D
82
Tell No One
82
Secret of the Grain, The
82
Rachel Getting Married
82
Let the Right One In
82
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
81
Wrestler, The
81
Wendy and Lucy
81
Silent Light
80
Frost/Nixon
79
Of Time and the City
79
I've Loved You So Long
78
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
75
Pool, The
75
Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
72
I Served the King of England
71
What Doesn't Kill You
70
Black Balloon, The
70
Moscow, Belgium
70
Hunger
70
I.O.U.S. A
69
Ashes of Time Redux
69
Fear(s) of the Dark
68
August Evening
68
Timecrimes
68
Theater of War
67
Synecdoche, New York
65
Just Another Love Story
65
Scott Walker: 30 Century Man
64
Che
64
JCVD
64
Nothing But the Truth
64
Appaloosa
63
Changeling
63
Eden
62
Duchess, The
61
Where God Left His Shoes
59
We Are Wizards
58
Adam Resurrected
58
Reader, The
58
Defiance
57
Special
57
Last Chance Harvey
56
Cherry Blossoms
56
Religulous
55
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
55
What Just Happened?
54
Battle in Seattle
54
Good Dick
53
RocknRolla
51
Breakfast with Scot
50
How About You
48
Yonkers Joe
46
Dukes, The
44
Chandni Chowk to China
43
Tru Loved
43
Gardens of the Night
43
Not Easily Broken
42
Donkey Punch
40
While She Was Out
40
Igor
40
Other End of the Line, The
39
Good
38
Dark Streets
36
My Name Is Bruce
34
Otto; or Up with Dead People
32
Repo! The Genetic Opera
31
Hounddog
31
Let Them Chirp Awhile
30
Guitar, The
29
Lake City
28
Nobel Son
28
Fireproof
26
Filth and Wisdom
21
House of the Sleeping Beauties
21
Lodger, The
xx
Dostana
xx
Cargo 200
xx
Local Color
xx
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi
xx
Killshot
xx
Extreme Movie
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Inkheart
New Line Cinema (Warner Bros. Pictures)
|
|
MPAA RATING: PG for fantasy adventure action, some scary moments and brief language
Starring
Brendan Fraser,
Paul Bettany,
Helen Mirren,
Jim Broadbent,
Andy Serkis,
Sienna Guillory,
Eliza Hope Bennett,
and
Rafi Gavron
Mortimer "Mo" Folchart and his 12-year-old daughter, Meggie, share an extraordinary gift for bringing characters from books to life when they read aloud. But there is a danger: when a character is brought to life from a book, a real person disappears into its pages. On one of their trips to a secondhand book shop, Mo hears voices he hasn't heard for years, and when he locates the book they're coming from, it sends a shiver up his spine. It's Inkheart, a book filled with illustrations of medieval castles and strange creatures--a book he's been searching for since Meggie was three years old, when her mother, Resa, vanished into its mystical world. But Mo's plan to use the book to find and rescue Resa is thwarted when Capricorn, the evil villain of Inkheart, kidnaps Meggie and, discovering she has inherited her father's gift, demands that she bring his most powerful ally to life--the Shadow. Determined to rescue his daughter and send the fictional characters back where they belong, Mo assembles a small group of friends and family--some from the real world, some from the pages of books--and embarks on a daring and perilous journey to set things right. (Warner Brothers)
GENRE(S): |
Adventure
|
Family/Kids
|
Fantasy
|
WRITTEN BY: |
David Lindsay-Abaire
Cornelia Funke (novel)
|
DIRECTED BY: |
Iain Softley
|
RELEASE DATE: |
Theatrical: January 23, 2009
|
RUNNING TIME: |
106 minutes, Color |
ORIGIN: |
Germany | UK | USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
78
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Inkheart was shot in and around Liguria on the Italian Riviera, and it looks absolutely ravishing.
75
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Tasha Robinson
The story itself is so charmingly dense, fractious, and complicated that it frequently leaves the obvious good-guy-fights-bad-guy groove, and noses toward Terry Gilliam-esque randomness and ebullience.
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
Inkheart feels a little confused in its tone and direction, but only a little, and I appreciate the way it both celebrates the power of literature and reminds us that stories have a life beyond the page, even if they are only in our hearts and minds.
75
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Mirren's all-out display in this distinctly British absurdo-literary extravaganza had me wishing Elinor were my own fabulous auntie and that she'd lend me some magic items from her closet.
70
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
For the young people in its demographic wheelhouse, Inkheart packs a welcome amount of entertainment value, creating a genuinely original world of enchantment.
63
USA Today
Claudia Puig
It's a shame that by its conclusion the movie feels like just another special-effects-driven story.
63
TV Guide
Jason Buchanan
A film that's brimming with fascinating ideas and elevated by some memorable performances.
63
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
A fine ensemble, some gorgeous Italian Riviera locales, intermittent flashes of magic amid a more manufactured air of whimsy.
63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Inkheart looks good and is well acted but, in the end, it left me indifferent.
50
Variety
Justin Chang
Despite abundant talent on both sides of the camera and a bevy of eye-catching supernatural beasties, this f/x-heavy story of a literature-loving father and daughter battling dark forces unleashed from the pages of a rare tome doesn't conjure much in the way of bigscreen magic.
50
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
Most of the time it looks like we're on the back lot for a Romanian production of "Lord of the Rings IV."
50
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Not realizing that Inkheart is based on a famous fantasy novel, I had the foolish hope the movie might be about books. No luck. Wait till you hear what it's about.
50
Portland Oregonian
M. E. Russell
The actors are mostly charming; Bettany in particular is broody and cool.
50
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Graced with so many fanciful touches and features such a marvelous assortment of U.K. and American actors that it seems almost unjust that the final product is so curiously lacking in magic.
50
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
The movie begins to seem a little overloaded and gimmicky once characters from children's classics begin turning up (including Toto from The Wizard of Oz), but it's handsomely mounted.
50
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
You know a movie's not working when you see minotaurs, flying monkeys, "The Wizard of Oz's" Toto and Helen Mirren riding a unicorn -- all on the screen at the same time -- and you're still waiting for the thing to be over so you can go home and get on with your life.
40
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
Aims for a blend of whimsy and tingly suspense but botches nearly every spell it tries to cast.
40
Los Angeles Times
Sheri Linden
With no unifying sensibility, the magic thuds more often than it soars.
40
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
Inkheart goes crazy with fairy tale characters popping in and out, all sorts of fantastical creatures materializing and so many rescues one loses count. Yet the movie fails to involve the key constituent: the audience.
40
Village Voice
Nick Pinkerton
It all smacks of that overdone "passion for literature" common in English teachers who send any healthy-minded kid running from books.
30
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Not since the thunderous digital onslaughts of "Jumanji" has the big screen seen such too-muchness.
25
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Seemingly intended as a celebration of the power of books, it's an occasionally incoherent, sleep-inducing picture that reduces narrative to mere mechanics.
20
New York Daily News
Joe Neumaier
A kids' adventure movie can be a lot of things -- wild and woolly, loosey-goosey, full of foolishness -- but they should never be shabby. And that's the best word for Inkheart.
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