Once upon a time, there was a little girl known here as Galaxy. She was nine years old, and her tenth birthday (September 7th) was coming up--she about to become a double digit!!! At her party, she received a very special gift: a book, called Inkheart.
By now, she's read it over
three time. It was
wonderful. And, what excited her most of all, was the little sticker on it:
Soon to be a major motion-picture!!! it said.
Well, now, over three years later, Galaxy--me, of course--finally got to see the movie in the theatres.
Was it good?
Well, there were some pros and cons... I'll do my best to make it clear:
Dustfinger: Dustfinger is my favorite character in the entire series. He is really, really cool! When he first came out in the movie, he looked just like how I had imagined him... but he sounded odd... Thankfully, the next time I saw him he was Dustfinger. He was amazing. He was Dustfinger.
Mo: Brendan Fraiser (sp?) did a great job as Mo, I think. He looks almost exactly as I had pictured him, except a little wider... not chubbier or anything, but
broader.
Meggie: The girl they had playing Meggie did an adequate job. She could have been better, but I bought her. I didn't like her 'reading' voice, but besides that, she was okay.
Capricorn: No. No, no no NO!!! Capricorn isn't some sly, smiley, bald, comical-comment making villain! He's smooth, indifferent, blond, white, cold... very cold. They did a terrible job with Capricorn. Yes, he is very evil in the book, and it would be okay to tone him down, but to completely
change his character! Come
on!Basta: No, no, no no no(again, hehe)! He's supposed to be scary! And a mustache? Are you kidding me? They amplified Basta's faults, (his fear of fire and his superstition) and toned down his scary parts (namely, his knife). He just wasn't the same... He's supposed to send shivers down your spine... not be like that!
All the Villains in General: Not good. They tried to make them almost inhuman... it just didn't work. A lot of Capricorn's men were supposed to be young boys... orphans, outcasts, not some weird half-wit people. They just didn't do it right.
Elinor: ...did a pretty good job. The way she talked, everything... maybe a little toned down in a few points from the actual Elinor, and she did wear different clothes than I imagined, but hey, not bad.
Farid: I thought he did a really good job as well. I imagined him with an accent, but not dropping words... still, he was almost just like how I imagined him--besides the longish hair.
The Shadow: Was AWESOME! Besides being two-times as big as I imagined him, they did a really good job with that.
In General: Capricorn's village looked like the real thing. I imagined it in a valley with cliffs surrounding it rather than being
on a cliff, but one can't be too picky... the buildings, with their color and style--as well as the roads and scenery--were the same, and that's what matters. Elinor's library was too small, and the bookshelves were too... I also imagined them all one style, rather than different, and a higher ceiling that the bookshelves reached all the way up to...
They changed what happened and how the characters were introduced at the beginning, but as the movie went on it got truer to the story. At the end, they wrapped things up a bit more than they did in the book (e.g. making Dustfinger go home and Resa getting her voice back), and I suppose that makes sense--since they might not get to make a sequel--but I thought I'd mention it.
My last complaint would be about the part where Meggie reads the Shadow out. In the book she gets a paper from Fenoglio to read aloud and make the Shadow kill Capricorn so they can all be free, but just before she finishes she can't read the last few words. She just can't do it. Then Mo comes out and finishes it, and they all live happily ever after... in the movie, the Magpie (who they never established as Capricorn's mother as far as I can remember) takes the paper away from Meggie, and she has to write her own words rather than read... I suppose that was poetical and cool and all, but for some reason I really liked it the way it was in the book.
Overall, the movie was okay. It was wonderful to see the characters come to life in a movie, but they could have done better... Still, I'm glad as ever to finally see it, and I look forwards to watching it with the whole fam when it comes out on DVD!
Galaxy
