Bookbinders, Space Travelers, and Mutants May 25, 2009
I love going to the movies. Before I choose a film to watch on the big screen, I check reviews. Yes, I’m one of those annoying people who says, “That got terrible reviews. The critics hated it!” or “The reviews were good. Most of the critics seemed to like it.” Then I’ll go a step further and shell out my hard-earned bucks ($8.00 a ticket!) for the ones the “professional movie watchers” like. Recently, though, I’ve only gone to the theater for movies I know I’ll enjoy, at least a little. Here are my thoughts on the last three I saw on the big screen:
1. Inkheart. This film is based on author Cornelia Funke’s brilliant trilogy (Inkheart, Inkspell, and Inkdeath) about a girl whose father can read characters out of (and, unfortunately, can read people into) books. The novels are lengthy, fully developed sagas packed with fascinating characters, suspense, life and death, and even romance. Translating the first book into a film seemed to me a daunting task. It turns out the critics were right about this one. Though the cast, including Brendan Fraser as the father Mortimer Folchart and Paul Bettany as Dustfinger (a character Mo reads out of a book), was well chosen and talented, the script fell flat. Full of cliches and special effects, the movie completely doused the passion in the novel, and the ending was terribly redone. I don’t want to see it again, and I’d like to ask the filmmakers to kindly leave my favorite books alone.
2. Star Trek. Unfortunately, I missed the Star Trek ship when it took off sometime in the late 1960s. I remember seeing bits and pieces of the entertaining/somewhat hokey TV show as my parents watched it. They moved on to the later series, meeting characters like Data and Wesley Crusher and Captain Picard. I did not. At first, I felt indifferent about this movie, but after its release, when the critics gave it rave reviews and many of my friends agreed with them, I decided to see it. It was, in a word, awesome. My sketchy Star Trek memory served me well as I recognized the young characters—Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Chekov, Uhura, Sulu. This film, which reveals the origins of the initial Enterprise crew, tells the story from a new perspective that leaves previous films unaffected. The clever writers and director can now build a series that hopefully won’t alienate lifelong fans. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It made me laugh and it made me think.
3. X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I didn’t like this movie as much as I wanted to. My mother read the comic book series and enjoyed the first two X-Men films, which tell stories about mutant humans who are mistreated because of their strange powers. Neither of us appreciated the third, The Last Stand, which heaped on the special effects at the cost of the story’s soul. Wolverine, the first film in what will supposedly be a new series, did the same. Even the presence of Hugh Jackman couldn’t compensate for the shallow story, hollow character development, and over-the-top special effects. The movie lacked intelligence. I felt played to as an audience member. Sure, it was fun to watch, but overall a disappointment. And you know what? The critics agreed.
Maybe these mysterious critics have some benefit after all. Or am I simply influenced by them so that I go into a film biased? Either way, I still love going to the movies.
Butterfly looks forward to our nightly book reading. Of course, we read at other times of the day too, but without fail, we close each evening by reading three books together. Over the past few months, our selections at the library have grown wordier. The King opened one of Butterfly’s choices last night, gasped at the pages and pages of words, and promptly informed her that it was a “daytime” book. I’ve done the same thing, but it is meaningful to me that my little girl loves reading as much as I do. I can only hope that her taste for books increases as she learns to decipher the letters for herself. Oh, what worlds that gift can reveal!
