( Entertainment Weekly ) -- Watching Iain Softley 's motley , jewel-toned adaptation of `` Inkheart , '' the best-selling 2003 young-adult novel by Cornelia Funke , I had the distinct sensation of being a young bookworm again , falling into a world as vividly real as it is impossible . Brendan Fraser stars as Mo , a literature lover who brings characters to life when he reads aloud . In Funke 's universe -- given voice in a screenplay by fantasy-friendly playwright David Lindsay-Abaire -- a literature lover named Mo ( Brendan Fraser ) possesses a dangerous talent for bringing characters from books to life when he reads aloud . The downside ? When a fictional figure comes alive , a real person must disappear into the book 's pages . That explains the extended absence of Mo 's wife , Resa ( Sienna Guillory ) . Mo has not yet told the truth about Resa 's disappearance to their intrepid young daughter , Meggie ( Eliza Hope Bennett ) , just as many a movie adult before him annoyingly withheld information from their children for dramatic effect . ( Maybe Fraser 's Mo , a pleasantly square-framed American among a population of Brits , just ca n't bring himself to utter the word `` Mummy . '' ) It also explains the presence of a rambunctious crowd of fictional interlopers . These include a soulful fire juggler ( Paul Bettany ) who yearns for home ( and why not , when real-life wife Jennifer Connelly appears briefly as the juggler 's fairy-tale missus ) , and an acquisitive villain named Capricorn ( Andy Serkis , always welcome even without his Gollum suit ) . A unicorn and `` The Wizard of Oz 's '' flying monkeys also make appearances -- as does , briefly , Toto too . The story is a whirl , a jumble , an effusion -- sometimes flowing smoothly , other times jerking along as if the filmmaker ( `` Backbeat , '' `` The Wings of the Dove '' ) has been given advice he resents regarding pacing and the balance of sweetness and danger . There are close calls , weird whispers , amusing throwaway lines , the ditherings of a distractible author ( Jim Broadbent ) , and cartoon violence undertaken by misshapen scary-comic evil henchmen . But most deliciously madcap of all , there are the grand gestures and imperious pronouncements of Helen Mirren as Meggie 's flesh-and-blood great-aunt Elinor , a creature of pencil-thin eyebrows and luscious costumery who caws and squawks with very unqueenly abandon . 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 . EW Grade : B. CLICK HERE to Try 2 RISK FREE issues of Entertainment Weekly . Copyright 2009 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved .
Publishers Weekly : " Softley 's version of ` ` ' '' ` ` Inkheart '' is best - selling 2003 young - adult novel by Cornelia Funke . A lover has dangerous talent for bringing characters from books to life . Film stars Brendan Fraser , Paul Newman , Helen Mirren and Eliza Hope Bennett .