Inkheart

Brendan Fraser returns to the multiplex day care as Mo Folchart, a member of a race of “Silvertongues” — those who, when they read aloud, can suck people out of and into the texts they’re reciting. Mo has abstained from practicing his gift ever since his wife was slurped off into limbo just as a motley assortment of roughs from a book, titled Inkheart, popped off the page. All of this is retrospectively revealed to Mo’s daughter when Inkheart‘s villains catch up with Dad as he’s scouring obscure booksellers looking for a copy of The Book so that he can reverse the switch. The capo of the baddies, Capricorn (Andy Serkis), doesn’t want to go back into bindery and so orders that copies of Inkheart be put out of print by a private army of book-burning brigands. They operate from a castle whose dungeon holds a menagerie of literary beasties that include Frank Baum flying monkeys, a J.M. Barrie ticking croc and a Bulfinch Minotaur. It all smacks of that overdone “passion for literature” common in off-putting English teachers who send healthy-minded kids running from books. “What in the name of Chaucer’s beard?” exclaim bibliophiles. “For the love of Thomas Hardy!” and “Great galloping Knut Hamsuns!” (I made just one of those up.) Fraser intones, “The written word: It’s a powerful thing,” as though sitting for his “Reading Is FUNdamental” poster. — Nick Pinkerton