Inkheart review

We saw Inheart the other night. I'd like to report that it was very good, but really just the premise was good. The rest had plot holes you could drive a planet through.

The main problem with the movie is that the rules of the magic power (being able to read a book and have the thing you're reading come to life) change all the time. Brendan Fraser spends 9 years looking for his wife because when he read 'Inkheart,' the bad guys came out of the book and she went in. So he wants to find the book again, and the book is really rare apparently, so that he can somehow 'read her out.'

Seems straightforward enough except towards the end-and I'm trying not to spoil too much here-it's apparent that just anything at all a "Silvertongue" reads will happen, even if they write it down themselves.

This loophole basically grants Silvertongues God-like powers over all of creation. If they don't like you then can just write 'then Bob's head exploded' and that would be that. They could write down 'then 10 trillion dollars rained from the sky' and it would happen. Cancer? 'Bob's cancer was miraculously cured, as was the entire planet's.' With one stroke of the pen you could wipe out every disease, every social problem, every error ever committed by anyone anywhere and could bring people back from the dead and travel through time and do whatever you wanted and it would work just because you willed it. So why doesn't Brendan Fraser just write down 'and then my wife came back' and save himself 9 years?

So if they'd applied some better rules to this formula, it might have worked. Like, it would have been funny for him to read things kind of silly, like a manual about how to fix exploding toilets or for some kind of embarassing thing like invisible pants or something. Oh well. I would draw something for this post but I'm pretty sure no one would want that.