The movie starts out with our main character, Mortimer (a charming Brendan Fraser), and his lovely daughter, Meggie (Eliza Hope Bennett), combing bookshops in search of a book. She doesn't know what he's looking for, but she knows he's looking. Her mother has also gone missing, and he's never explained that to her, either. I wonder if those two things are connected? Hmmmm. And then a fire thrower named Dustfinger (Paul Bettany) shows up, looking for Mortimer, right as Mortimer finds Inkheart, and the adventure begins. Turns out Mortimer wants to get his wife out of Inkheart, where she went when he accidentally read Dustfinger out of the book. But he also read a villain from the book, Capricorn (Andy Serkis), out (and we're not told who was read in in his place), and he is trying to destroy every copy of the book to keep himself from being read back in. He likes this world better, after all.

So, Capricorn wants Mortimer to read villains and riches and other things out of books for him, because the stuttering reader he's had doing it has only been bringing people partly out. (Well, they're technically out, for the most part, but they have type across their skin, somehow making them evil and ominous; in at least one case, all of them have come out except their voice.)

To add to the confusion, we get Elinor (Helen Mirren), an eccentric aunt of Mortimer's missing wife who's been holed up in Italy with her ancient books. Mortimer and Meggie come to stay, but end up bringing mayhem along with them, sucking Elinor into a situation she didn't sign up for. Mirren is funny and lively, but it's sort of embarrassing to see an Oscar-winning Dame riding a motorbike and a unicorn, and talking to herself all silly. It's okay for her to be funny, but to be the clownish comic relief? Not really acceptable. To make matters worse, another Oscar winner (Jim Broadbent) shows up as the writer of Inkheart, Fenoglio. And here's where things will make you scratch your head. Because, see, Mortimer's been looking for his wife (or, rather, copies of Inkheart, in which he'll be able to find her) for nine years. But only toward the middle to end of the movie does it seem to dawn on him that they should find the author and see if he has a copy of the book. Or, you know, a manuscript. Why couldn't he have done that nine years ago and saved us all a great deal of grief? [Considering this story seems to take place in the modern day, I think it's more likely he would have simply found an eBay seller. - Z]

And then, we are to presume that characters read out of the book are no longer in the book, and that people read into the book are now part of the text, but there is at least one point when Mortimer reads someone back in by reading about them IN THE BOOK. But wait, aren't they not in the book any longer? What just happened? Who knows?

[The book is really my sticking point. The film's title conjured an image in my head of someone with printer's ink in their veins, so I presumed it referred to either Fraser, who can bring books to life, or any of the myriad literary characters who were walking around in the real world. But no, it's just the title of a book some guy wrote once, about a fire-thrower and a murderer and a giant, Lost-esque smoke monster that the murderer controls, somehow. No ink anywhere. Andy Serkis' character is fairly black-hearted, I suppose, but it seems a tenuous connection, and the smoke monster is named "the Shadow." Of course, the plot of Inkheart the book is never explained in the movie, so maybe it makes more sense in imaginary context. - Z]

And, then, finally, the rules change a final time in such a way that is really unforgivable. We find out that the reading doesn't have to be of a book and doesn't even have to be reading. Which would be fine, I guess, if Mortimer somehow didn't know this. But it's made clear that he does. I can't explain it any better than that without giving away what happens in the end, but suffice it to say that if you're a freak about internal logic, you'll be tearing your hair out.

Then there's the small matter of American-accented Fraser having a British daughter. I assume this means she grew up in England, but that is never explained, which would have been nice. [Actually, it seems like Mortimer moved her around a lot. Her mom sounds like she might have been British, but she went into the book when Meggie was little. - Z] And they also might have explained why every character that comes out of a book speaks English, even the Middle Eastern bandit, who we have to assume wouldn't have been a native English speaker. But they just slapped a silly accent on him and left it at that.

So, the movie all makes very little sense, and isn't explained that well, but even that would have been okay if the poorly explained nonsense at least stuck to its own internal logic. Because, see, you can take me along for the ride as long as you don't try to change the tires while the motorcycle's still moving (oh, sorry; wrong movie).

All of that said, Fraser is as charming as ever, despite his continued lack of acting skill. He really does make terrible decisions that require the least possible acting, but manages to come across like he's having a good old time doing all of it. And Bennett and Bettany are both lovely and solid in their roles. Mirren and Broadbent's characters are both goofy and ridiculous, but since they're pros, these actors give it their all and actually will make you laugh (in a good way) several times throughout.

This movie's not terrible; it's actually sort of fun if you can watch it fairly mindlessly. What makes it a travesty isn't that it's not great, but that it could have been. A mediocre movie that's about a family dog, for example, is just a mediocre movie. But a mediocre movie about something that could have been great is almost worse because of all of that spoiled opportunity.

Now you tell us -- what did you think of Inkheart?