There is a lot of suggestive detail (like the backwards texts stained on characters imperfectly summoned by a stuttering silvertongue) and cameos for the likes of Rapunzel, but the bigger picture never quite coalesces, and we’re left with a few tantalising questions - like whether Inkheart the novel becomes a lot duller since all its villains are displaced into the real world. Inkheart is a bit of a mess, with many characters running around interesting, misty Italian locations at crossed purposes while the screenplay struggles to establish the rules of its fantastical premise. Since his big mission is raiding a castle to rescue his family, he could easily whip up some characters like James Bond or Superman to save the day.

Its established ‘silvertongues’ are wary of using their power to summon characters (and objects) from books, since a universal balance means that real people (like the hero’s own wife) vanish into fiction to even things up - but the ‘book doctor’ played by Brendan Fraser might solve his problems more swiftly if he read more widely. The central idea of Inkheart - which originates with novelist Cornelia Funke - is irresistible, but the movie is somewhat limited by a hesitancy of imagination (and the spectre of copyright).

Cornelia funke inkheart series