Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Burton)

Overall:

It's not easy doing justice to a Roald Dahl book. The man was a creative genius with such imagination that to recreate one of his tales on screen would require a tremendous amount of effort, not to mention extreme skill. Luckily, Tim Burton was willing to put in the hard yards to not only do justice to this literary childrens' masterpiece, but to bring it to life. The work poured into this 2005 film was enormous, but the result was nothing less than spectacular.

'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' is possibly my favourite Roald Dahl book; I'd highly recommend it to anyone of any age. I love what the filmmakers did to this movie, because it seems as if they read the book, let their imaginations run wild, and then put what they saw onto a screen.

It was brilliant.

Plot:

Don't you hate it when filmmakers think they know better than the author of the book on which the film is based, and make drastic, unnecessary changes to the plot? Of course, it is ridiculous to say that a film should not deviate from the novel at all. There are always some sensible, smallish tweaks to the original story that are needed to make the movie more cinematic, or more understandable, or to fit into the time frame with more ease, but a lot of the time the filmmakers take these changes much too far.

Thankfully, in 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory', Dahl's genius has been appreciated and the main story has been largely untouched. The main changes came from delving deeper into Willy Wonka's past and developing the character more, so they were worthwhile.

Characters:


Charlie



Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore) - The thing which defines Charlie Bucket in the book 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' is that he is quite normal. His family is poor, which makes him nice and appreciative - not rotten like the other children who win tickets to see Wonka's Chocolate Factory. This is how the filmmakers kept him in the movie.

I liked this. Charlie was not 'special'. He didn't have any super-powers, he wasn't a genius, and he didn't have any cool gadgets. He was normal, like us. We can relate to this boy!
Also, in a world where many films have main characters that are selfish, reinforcing the 'it's all about me' message that people seem to like so much, Charlie was a refreshing change. Polite and caring, he's a good role model to the kids watching the movie.
Thumbs up to Tim Burton for keeping Charlie's character true to the book!



Augustus

Augustus Gloop (Philip Wiegratz) - Grandpa George tells Charlie that the first person to find a golden ticket will be "Fat, fat, fat!" Augustus Gloop sure did prove him right! The actor had to wear a fat suit to appear porky enough for the part, and was constantly eating a bar of chocolate. He wasn't quite disgusting enough to put me off chocolate, though...  but a good portrayal of this character.

Veruca

Veruca Salt (Julia Winter) - The way Veruca Salt was portrayed in this film was absolutely priceless. Julia Winter played this spoilt brat brilliantly. It was so entertaining!
Veruca is also a demonstration to children of how having everything isn't necessarily that great. That, and that throwing tantrums makes you look ridiculous.

Violet

Violet Beauregarde (Anasophia Robb) - I imagine that Roald Dahl must have really hated seeing kids chewing gum all the time when he created the character of Violet Beauregarde, because in the book her sole purpose was to show children what a disgusting habit it is to chew gum all day. The filmmakers have expanded Violet's character a bit to turn her into a girl bent on winning anything and everything, mainly to do with chewing gum. This wasn't a bad change, as it made her a less likable, less deserving character.




Mike

Mike Teavee (Jordan Fry) - The novel 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' was written in 1964, where not that many people owned televisions. Even then, Dahl could tell that children were spending far too long in front of screens. The original Mike Teavee was a kid who watched lots of spy/gun shows, and carried around some ludicrous number of guns with him. This film was made in 2005, so the filmmakers have modernised Mike a bit into a violent video gamer. This is established early into the film as the audience are introduced to him playing a video game, yelling, "DIE, DIE, DIE!" Unfortunately, the filmmakers chose to make him a know-all when it came to science, which I thought slightly undermined the 'TV makes you dumb' message. Apart from that, though, I thought that Mike Teavee was portrayed very well, and made the film seem more modern.



Wonka

 Willy Wonka (Johnny Depp) - A lot is left to interpretation when it comes to Willy Wonka in the novel. He's simply seen as some marvellous, generous man who happens to be an eccentric genius. When putting this into a film, though, one has to consider exactly what an eccentric genius looks like. The book describes him as a man who wears a top hat, a purple waistcoat, green pants and a black goatee. Obviously, that doesn't tell us a lot about who he is and how he got to where he did. What I like about the film is that they looked at Willy Wonka's backstory: what his childhood was like, etc. On top of being very entertaining, it helped us as the audience to realise why Mr. Wonka was so... unusual. Johnny Depp was said to have based his character on Michael Jackson. It wasn't quite what I imagined Willy Wonka to be when I was eight years old, reading the book, but I prefered this to the Willy Wonka from the previous film rendition (who was kind of scary).



Oompa Loompas

 Oompa Loompas (Deep Roy): All the Oompa Loompas (Tens? Hundreds?Thousands, maybe?) were played by just one man in this film, which I thought was fantastic. A lot of work, yes. Effective, definitely. The attention to detail was phenomenal. All the dances to the songs were choreographed and excecuted perfectly in time. Keeping them at knee height for the whole movie (involving a lot of shooting on oversized sets and CGI) was done so smoothly that the first few times I watched the film, I thought the actor must have been naturally that small. The Oompa Loompas were a hilarious part of the film that really helped bring it to life and added some great humour to the film. Loved them. :)

Themes:
In the book, all the themes are fairly self-explanitory, and most of the important ones have been outlined in the character section of this review. To my delight, the film included the great majority of these. It also added a theme: the importance of family. I still can't decide whether I'm pleased or upset that they included this (to be honest, I'm not sure I care too much), because on one hand, it fights for the main focus of the film, leaving less time for the themes in the book to be explored, but on the other hand, it's a family movie and it didn't really hurt to have it thrown in. I suppose it doesn't really matter too much.

Props / Scenery:
Wow. Just wow.
The sets for this film were absolutely amazing. Wacky, beautiful, eccentric, fun, mysterious, colourful... they were Burton's imagination come to life. The effort that was put in to create the sets must have been phenomenal. I can say one thing: this was no half-hearted endevour. The pictures are so vivid... Charlie's tiny little house with its twisted charm in the foreground, with the dull, orderly city behind it and Willy Wonka's huge chocolate factory looming over it all, dark, mysterious and inviting... A room where everything, from the candied grass to the viscous chocolate river is edible... you can imagine being in every single scene of the movie with no difficulty, which draws the viewer right in.
Again, wow.

Special Effects:
As has been the trend with this film, the special effects were so great that the viewer couldn't tell they were special effects. Well, I couldn't, anyway. Take, for example, the squirrels in the nut room. When I thought about it, I could never figure out whether they were real or CGI. They looked as if they were real ones, but I was quite sure they couldn't be trained to do what they did. It turned out that it was a clever blend of filming real squirrels, CGI and animatronic puppets. Animal trainers spent three months training baby squirrels to run where they wanted them to and appear to be cracking nuts. Three months! Talk about making an effort! The only special effect I thought could have been a bit more realistic was Violet Beauregarde turning into a blueberry. It looked slightly fake. Yet again, what's realistic about somebody turning into a blueberry? Altogether, the SFX were very good.

Music:
The music in this film is probably one of my favourite scores ever. It fit so perfectly into the film that I could probably write an essay on it. But I won't, because I can't be bothered and nobody would read it anyway. So I'll try to fit all of what I want to say into a couple of paragraphs:
The music is all done by Danny Elfman - the score, the Oompa Loompa songs... he even sang all the different Oompa Loompa voices himself, and it was perfect. The score he composed for the opening credits was the best part, in my opinion: low brass playing mysterious, rising undertones; percussion enforcing the in a regular, mechanical beat that emphasised the factory background; Oompa Loompa voices singing in a somewhat sickly-sweetly manner that reminds the viewer of candy; all meshed together in a theme that intrigues the audience and draws them right into the film from the very start. It just goes to show what a high standard the music is at not only to have made me interested in the opening credits (which, admittedly, are generally the most boring part of the film apart from the end credits), but to make that scene one of my favourites in the film.
The Oompa Loompa songs are also brilliant - each of them is so unique, with a completely different style each, but all of them are utterly entertaining. What I was particularly impressed with was the fact that the lyrics were all taken from the book, once again honouring Roald Dahl and his masterpiece. The soundtrack is one I would highly reccommend to anyone who has seen the film or read the book (to those who haven't, the lyrics might seem a bit... odd).

Good Things:

• The complete respect with which the filmmakers treated every aspect of the book :D
• The casting - all the actors suited their characters very well
• The Oompa Loompas - a lot of work, but worth it
• The sets. Amazing.
• The special effects - for the most part, very realistic
• The music

Bad things:
(Not much here, really)

• Being nitpicky, perhaps the Violet-turns-into-a-blueberry scene needed to be slightly more realistic
• No sequel! And now, Freddie Highmore is probably too old to play Charlie in 'Charlie and the Glass Elevator', which is very disappointing.

Overall:
This film really respects the book (which, being a bookworm, I cannot encourage more), and look where that got the filmmakers - a movie that made heaps of money because everybody loved it! I'm sure that Roald Dahl would have loved it. As far as adaptations go, I'm giving it five stars (out of five). For entertainment value, I give it four and a half stars. I highly reccommend both the film and the book to all of my readers.

~IoP

A Christmas Carol (2009 Animated)

Hello there, my loyal bookworms! I've finally escaped (for a time) that ugly black hole of homework and study! With this new-found (though likely short-lived) freedom, I am very happy to present to you another one of my (admittedly rare) comparative analysis reviews. This is one I've been wanting to do for ages, so now, without further ado, A Christmas Carol!

Overall position of the film:

I began watching this film expecting an adaptation of 'A Christmas Carol' for children, with more modern, easy-to-understand language and a fair bit of slapstick humour. However, I was completely caught unawares! This is a thorough, very close adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic novel that barely deviates from the plot, language and most importantly, themes, that were in the book. I would even go as far as to say that it is the closest film adaptation of 'A Christmas Carol' that I have ever seen.

Plot:

As I mentioned earlier, the plot barely deviates from the book at all in this film. There is slight poetic licence taken here and there (for example, Scrooge is at one point chased by the Ghost of Christmas yet to Come), but for the most part, Dickens' work is greatly respected and great attention to detail is shown in the story.

Characters:

Scrooge - This was certainly one of Jim Carrey's more serious roles. He voiced Scrooge with much conviction and character, bringing the old miser at the centre of this story to life. I also loved the way the animators portrayed him: tallish, very skinny, with thin lips, and a long, hooked nose.

Marley - I thought that the filmmakers were very clever in the way they portrayed Marley's ghost. He was, in all truth, a fairly scary guy, with his glowing chains and message he gives to Scrooge, besides the fact that he is the first ghost we see in this tale. The filmmakers proceeded to make him seem a little less intimidating by throwing in a little bit of slapstick humour, but not so much as to make the audience forget the what is about to happen to the main character.

The Ghost of Christmas Past - I was quite startled at how well this ghost fitted the book's description, for it is one of those things that is easy to imagine but hard to visually portray. Dickens described it as:

"Like a child: yet not so like a child as an old man, [...] from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm."

The thing I was perhaps most impressed with was the way the face was constantly changing from old to young. I applaud the animators for the admirable job they did in bringing this character to life.

The Ghost of Christmas Present - Can't really complain for this ghost, either. Of course, this ghost, being the one closest to human form, is the easiest to visually depict. The way he was represented was not really very different to any other films, but it fitted the book's description, so I was still fairly happy with it even though is perhaps lacked the 'wow' factor of the other ghosts.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come - My goodness, this spirit was by far the scariest of the three! I absolutely loved the way the animators chose to portray it, for it was like nothing I had seen before and highly original. It actually had no form; it was only seen as the shadow of a cloaked figure, and this made it all the more frightening. Because there was no indication of how tall or short it was, and because it wasn't something one of the characters could touch any more than you or I could grasp a shadow, there was a huge element of mystery involved in this character. The filmmakers understood a very important concept here: the fear of the unknown is far greater than the fear of what you can see, because it lets the viewer's imagination fill in the gaps.

Themes:

I think that anyone who has read this classic novella would agree with me that it has the amazing theme of redemption running through it as Scrooge goes from a miserable old man who cares for nothing but himself to one who sees the error of his ways and is completely changed into a new man. This was not at all downplayed in the film for the comfort of the general public, which I was greatly appreciative of.
The theme of compassion is one that also runs throughout the book as Scrooge learns the importance of caring for others, not just one's self. This too was very much a part of this movie.

Christian Messages:

Even though the novel never explicitly mentions God having a hand in Scrooge's redemption or Scrooge realising Christ to be his personal savior, there are nevertheless many Christian messages present in this book. One of them is the fact that said main character was not able to change on his own. For that matter, he didn't even realise that magnitude of his actions until the three spirits showed him. This is something also picked up in the film - that redemption is not something we can achieve ourselves.

Setting:

All the background sets were very well thought out to highlight the fact that this is a story set in England somewhere around the year of 1843 (which was when this tale was published). I found it a fascinating insight to the way people lived back then, with the horse-drawn carriages and the huge churches and the small shops. They were the sort of sets that really took you back to the time and showed you what day to day life looked like.

Animation:

What can I say? The animation and art departments for this movie did a truly spectacular job. There is nothing I can really complain about, because everything they visually presented absolutely respected and embraced the spirit of this classic tale.

Music:

The music very much fitted in with the emotion of the film, at points full of Christmas cheer, at other times suspenseful and fast-paced. I especially loved the incorporation of much percussion with the other orchestral instruments (in my opinion, a good film score is one that makes good use of percussion!).

Things I disliked about the film:

• The only thing I can think to say is that this was advertised as a family film, but because of some scary scenes and the complexity of the language, it's more geared towards the 10+ age group.

Things I liked about the film:

• Accurate portrayal of all the characters
• Preservation of key themes from the text
• Lack of deviation from the text
• True to the cultural and historical context of the text

Overall:

I must say that I was very impressed by this adaptation of 'A Christmas Carol'. The choice to use animation rather than live action lent itself extremely well to this story, as things that would be difficult to depict in real life were presented skillfully in this medium. What I most of all enjoyed about this movie was the respect the filmmakers had for the original text and their reluctance to deviate from it. At the same time, however, their approach was creative. I would definitely recommend both the film and novella, but would caution that the film should not be seen by children under the age of ten years.

So there we have it, folks. I'd be interested to hear what you think of 'A Christmas Carol', whether it's insights about the book or comments about other film adaptations. You know what that means. ;)

Signing off,

~SON

Far-fetched Mr Fox

Hello, bookworms! What's this? SON has posted TWICE in less than two weeks??? Again, I would ask you all to refrain from passing out until AFTER you have read and - all importantly - COMMENTED on this post :)
Hey there to my two new followers, by the way! Barbara, Sir Lipine and Ashywashy - be nice to them. ;)
Don't forget about the nagging principle, guys. Remember, nagging + procrastination = motivation + results!
So finally, I have the review for 'Fantastic Mr. Fox', dedicated to my awesome brother Sir Lipine the Awesome. Please forgive me, Sir Lipine, for taking so long! It was the homework's fault!
Getting down to business, when I heard this movie was coming out, I was very excited. 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' happens to be my favourite Roald Dahl book of all time, right from when my mum read it to my siblings and I when we were very young as a bedtime story. The story is a delightful, fun tale full of adventure and mischief. The 'bad guys' (Boggis, Bunce and Bean) are truly awful and hideous in every sense of the word. The book is indeed a great pleasure to read, which I rediscovered when reading it for research.
"But how does the movie compare to the book?" you ask. That is a very good question. Allow me to do my best to answer it:

Overall position of the film:

Look, I'll be frank here straight away. The movie is nothing like the book. At best, you could say it was loosely based on the book. If you're looking for a film that captures the essence of 'Fantastic Mr.Fox', don't watch it. If, however, you want to watch a quirky movie that doesn't really have much of a point, go right ahead and see it. I did sort of like it, despite it being really weird. And Sir Lipine loved it. But I was also quite disappointed because I did not at all see Roald Dahl's story on the screen.

Plot:

Unfortunately, the plot is not really based at all on the book. Rather than following the daring exploits of Fantastic Mr. Fox as he gives those mean farmers what they deserve, the film follows the story of an average fox going through a midlife crisis (now you see why 'far-fetched' was in the title) who thinks he has to go back to the old excitement of stealing poultry from high-security farms to make himself feel complete. Roald Dahl's solution to the problem of the three mean farmers was ignored, and instead the filmmakers try to invent a complicated plot which is, put nicely, hardly genius.

Characters:

Bean- If you have read the book, you will know just how absolutely disgusting Farmer Bean is. If you have not, let me quote a passage to you:

Bean never took a bath. He never even washed. As a result, his earholes were clogged with all kinds of muck and wax and bits of chewing gum and dead flies and stuff like that. This made him deaf. [...] Bean rubbed the back of his neck with a dirty finger. He had a boil coming there and it itched.

See what I mean? Absolutely disgusting. Roald Dahl truly has a gift for creating the most loathsome characters in children's literature. In the movie, unfortunately, bean is not nearly as revolting as in the book. He's somewhat mean, and sort of tall, but by no means ridiculous. The beauty of Roald Dahl's bad guys is that they are ridiculous, and hideously so. Farmer Bean in the film was far too ordinary.

Bunce and Boggis- The film was quite strange in that it quoted the book more than I have ever seen in a film, yet it deviated from the book drastically. When introducing the farmers, Badger (who is a lawyer in the film - go figure) quotes directly from the book what they are like, how Boggis is extremely fat, Bunce is extremely short, and Bean is extremely tall and lean. Again, even though the film introduced them with the same words the book did, their disgusting personalities didn't really shine through and they just seemed like grumpy old men rather than ridiculously mean farmers.

Mr. Fox- I hate to have to say this, but Mr. Fox was hardly as fantastic, dashing, ingenious and heroic as Mr. Fox was in the book. As mentioned in the plot summary above, he's a fox going through a midlife crisis which, put nicely, is stupid, pointless and unrealistic, as he is a FOX. Okay, so maybe it's unrealistic for a fox to be noble and smart, as Dahl wrote Mr. Fox, but hey, it's a kid's book, and you're allowed to do that sort of stuff. This movie, however, wasn't really aimed at kids. I'm not saying that it's an adult movie or anything, but most of the (terrible) humour and (unoriginal) storyline would have gone straight over an eight year-old's head. Back to talking about Mr. Fox, though, the biggest problem I had with him was that I didn't really like him. He's the protagonist, everyone's supposed to love him! Instead, he was an ordinary, selfish fox who risked the lives of his family to have a bit of excitement. The filmmakers failed miserably in bringing Fantastic Mr. Fox to life.

Ash- Now, in the book, Mr. Fox has four adorable little cubs (is that the right word for a baby fox? Correct me if I'm wrong) who are just as thoughtful and smart as their father. Did we get this in the movie? No. Instead, we get Ash, Mr. Fox's only son, who is moody and selfish and just plain WEIRD. I am especially annoyed that they called him Ash, because I personally quite like the name Ash, and this just ruins it. I personally think that far too much glory is given to Ash in the film, because all the characters are telling Mr. Fox to accept his son, even though he is 'different'. Well, Ash isn't so much different as he is RUDE to everyone around him, and instead of just making an excuse that being rude is part of Ash's 'different' personality, I would say that Mr. Fox needs to teach his son some manners and stop being so selfish.

Other Characters- None of the other characters are really worth mentioning, all you need to know is that not one of them is the way they are in the books. Even the Rat has been changed in a pathetic character arc that the filmmakers really shouldn't have bothered with.

Themes:

This really is one of the strangest films I've ever seen when it comes to themes. Every time you think someone is going to make a point, they don't, and what they say end up being just like the movie as a whole: pointless. Overall, there really aren't that many themes to discuss. I suppose you could perhaps squeeze the theme of family in there, in how Mr. Fox comes to appreciate his family a little bit more, but really that is a weak theme that barely shows through the film. When it comes to it, to be honest, the movie actually doesn't have really have anything to say.

Messages:

Ditto the themes- there were none. :'(

Setting:

Nothing particularly special about the scenery, it was really quite average. Not once in the film did I think, "Wow, that place is exactly how I imagined it in the book!", and nothing really stood out.

Animation:

This film was made using stop animation with puppets. Overall, the picture at times wasn't as smooth as, say, a Wallace and Grommit movie, but seeing as at some points in production the animators were shooting 25 scenes at a time, the process was quite genius. The animators came up with a whole new program that enabled them to communicate with the director live, wherever he was, and for this I congratulate them. To see a video of how they did this, click here.

Music:

The music matched the movie, in that it was somewhat quirky but really rather boring. However, there was one theme in the music I really loved, which was children singing:

"Boggis, Bunce and Bean,

One fat, one short, one lean.

These horrible crooks, so different in looks,

Are none the less equally mean."

which was a rhyme in the novel that the children sang, so I thought that was quite fitting in the soundtrack. Apart from that small song, though, the music was nothing special.

Things I hated about the film:

• The characters (particularly Mr. Fox, Ash, and Farmer Bean
• The plot, which the filmmakers completely destroyed
• The lack of themes to discuss
• The overall pointlessness of the film
• It was BORING

Things I didn't mind about the film:

• The animation was okay
• The children's rhyme was cool
• Quoting the book in many places was good (it would have been even better if they

Overall:

The root of all the problems in this film was that the filmmakers completely disregarded the novel and basically marred it until it was almost unrecognisable. If they had any respect for the book, they would have seen it for the pure genius it was and tried to make the film as close to the book as possible. I realise that with any book-to-film adaptation, some changes are going to be made, but this is just pitiful. Fantastic Mr. Fox is such a wonderful novel, and it hurts me to see that so little effort went into preserving the original story. I would advise all bookworms who listen to my opinion (you are few and far between) not to watch this film, and if you are unfortunate enough to see it, watch it as a quirky movie with no point rather than an adaptation of Fantastic Mr. Fox. I don't like to be this scathing, but if you want good reviews from nerds such as myself, you're going to have to make good adaptations of my favourite books.

Signing off,
~SON

Don't forget to comment!!!

Inkheart

*warning, mild spoilers*

Hey, Bookworms!
Okay, firstly, I would like to thank everyone who has shown interest and given me criticism. I really need it! Someone even pointed out to me that I was spelling 'criticism' wrong. How embarrassing! Thanks for that!
I'm still researching LotR, so bear with me for that review! Anyway, if you're a LotR fanatic and you have an insightful comment you would like me to include in my review, just post a comment and I'll make sure I include it (AND give you credit for it).
To other matters, by request of The Cactus I have made a review of the movie 'Inkheart', which by chance I have been itching to write for quite some time now. Here goes...

Overall Position of the Film:

Okay, I am going to die for saying this. I'm just waiting for a mob of angry bookworms to show up at my door with torches and pitchforks to drag me away and kill me. But I can't lie about my opinion. The fact remains: I actually liked the movie more than I liked the book! Please, be nice to me! I would really like to live long enough to at least complete my review of LotR!
But let me explain the reason for this. You see, the movie is made very, very well. Everything that was put into the movie needed to be there, and all the things left out weren’t really necessary, taking into consideration that the book is at least 500 pages (depending on what edition you get), and that the movie was intended for the whole family to watch.
Inkheart is supposedly a book written for children. I disagree. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for anyone below the age of 13, for the complexities of the characters and the quite realistic bad morals of most of them.
Don’t get me wrong; Inkheart is a really great book, and Cornelia Funke is a genius to have thought of an idea so original. But the beauty of the film is that it is a movie the whole family can enjoy, with just as much fun and magic as the book but with better morals and heroes that are much more likeable.

Plot:

Basically, as far as plot was concerned, the movie was fairly close to the book. There were a few slight changes, but nothing really major, just a few things to make it a little bit shorter and more cinematic.
The one thing that didn’t really make sense in the storyline was that Capricorn threatened Meggie he’d kill her mother if she didn’t read the shadow out of the book. Thing was, the shadow was going to feast on Resa and Fenoglio anyway if she were to read it out, so why conjure up something when threatened if the thing that is being threatened is going to happen anyway, plus a lot more chaos. It just didn’t quite make sense to me.
Besides that slight glitch, however, the storyline worked really well and was quite close to the book.

Characters:

Meggie- I’ll say it now, Meggie was a lot more likable in the movie than in the book- more resourceful, observant and innocent. It is important for her to be this way, as she is the main heroine in the film (Mo doesn’t play as much of a part as he does in the book). Her longing to have her family reunited and to see her mother again makes the audience sympathise with her and want her to have a happy ending. As a few of you will know, Eliza Bennett’s performance as Meggie has convinced me that she would be a great casting choice for Jill if The Silver Chair ever gets made, as she plays the role (a fairly difficult one for that matter) very believably. Need I say any more?

Mo- From the protectiveness of his daughter to the desperation to find his missing wife, Mo is a great hero for this movie (although he ends up as a bit of a sidekick to Meggie in the end). Everything he does is reflective of his love of his family, from spending nine years chasing up a copy of Inkheart to refusing to read Dustfinger back. For those of you who have read Inkspell and Inkdeath, you can completely imagine him as the Bluejay in the future. As one small, nitpicky thing, I would have liked his voice to have sounded as beautiful as described in the text, but it’s really no big deal, and apart from that he was great- just like the book.

Elinor- In the books, Elinor Loredan was someone who, to me, always seemed like a chunk of ice: harsh, abrupt and cold. It was only Meggie, Mo and Resa who could thaw her. In the film, Helen Mirren portrayed her perfectly, from the mean old lady at the start to somebody who values her family more than her books in the end, and no longer wishes to be lonely. Even though the books always described her as plump, I always imagined her to be thin anyway- thin and tough, rather than plump and soft. So do not fear, bookworms, Elinor is still just as icy in the film as she is in the text.

Farid- In the book, he plays a fairly major role. In the film, he is more a comic relief than anything else, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. He is a lot less serious and a lot more likeable. He still helps defeat Capricorn and learns ‘Dragon’s Breath’ from Dustfinger, but does so in a comical, easy going way. His accent isn’t great, I’ll admit, but in my eyes, dare I say it, the movie verse version of him is still an improvement on then bookverse.

Capricorn- Well doesn’t this guy (Andy Serkis) just love playing criminals? First Gollumn, now this. I have to admit, he plays them very well. And he is hilarious as well as being evil, with his love of duct tape. But yes, he is very good. They probably ‘toned down’ his malevolence a little to make the film more family friendly, but seeing as it is, after all, a family film, I have no problems with that.

Basta- If it were not for his heavy superstition, Basta may have been a fairly scary guy. As it turned out, he still was kind of scary, but comical enough for the audience not to worry about him too much, and that is the beauty of it. He is bad, but far too wimpy to frighten young children too much, even with his knife.

Fenoglio- Absolutely fantastic would be an understatement for Fenoglio. He thinks so highly of himself, as well as being so daft, annoying and utterly useless that you can’t help but laugh. The adoration he has for his characters, even the evil ones, is priceless, and there is no doubt he is their author. Loved it!

Dustfinger- As in my review of ‘Voyage of the Dawn Treader’, I have decided to leave the best portrayed character until last. And let me tell you now, Dustfinger was definitely the best portrayed out of all of them. Like Eustace, it was as if he was stepping off the page onto the screen. In fact, you understand him far better in the film than you do in the text. The thing I love most about Dustfinger is that he is so wonderfully complex; there are two sides to him that are constantly battling within him. There is the weak, deceitful character that will do anything, even betray his friends, to get back to the Inkworld, and there is the other side of him is the part that hates betraying others and wants to do something to help someone for a change. The indecision on his face whenever he is about to betray somebody is really great. You can see that he really hates what he is about to do, but has already made up his mind. He’s the sort of character that the audience loves and hates at the same time. It was Dustfinger’s character that truly brought the movie to life.

Themes:

I really enjoyed the themes they focussed on in this movie. The one they gave the most attention was probably ‘destiny versus choice’ and the struggle Dustfinger goes through to fight against the way he was ‘written’. Another theme I picked out was ‘longing to be with family’, as demonstrated through the characters Mo, Meggie, Resa, Dustfinger and Elinor. A couple they did not focus so much on that were very prominent in the book were ‘growing up’ and ‘the joy of reading’. I was slightly disappointed they did not choose to focus so much on the latter two themes as much, but it’s a family length film and if they tried to include everything you’d be drowning in the themes. So thematically, I thought they did quite well.

Messages:

To be honest, the film didn’t really have any messages… not from what I could pick out, in any case. It’s really an entertainment film only, and it’s not trying to tell the audience anything profound. In that respect, it’s pretty much the same as the book.

Props/scenery:

I must say, the arts department did a very good job for this film. Of course, Italy is a great place to film a movie. When Mo and Meggie were driving to Elinor’s house, there are beautiful rolling hills and cute little villages seen all around. The book store towards the beginning of the movie was really cool: there were beautiful old books everywhere (I wished Mo would read me there so I could see them all). As for Elinor’s library… that was something else altogether. It was completely and utterly drool-worthy. Capricorn’s castle and village was spectacular as well, built all over the hills. Altogether, the props/scenery really brought atmosphere into the film.

Special effects:

I really loved the special effects in the movie- they were really subtle but altogether gave the film a much more magical feel. Small things such as cameras shaking/blurring slightly at the same time as light flashing were a really neat touch to make the characters/objects come out of the books rather than just making them magically appear. The creatures that had been read out of books (flying monkeys, ticking crocodile, etc) had great CGI and were very believable. Perhaps the best special effect of the movie was of The Shadow, which was utterly brilliant. To me, CGI always looks best if it is based on something moving without too much solid form, e.g. the water god in ‘Prince Caspian’ was made out of running water, which was a lot more realistic than some big blue man coming out of the river. The shadow was formed by a huge, billowing cloud of ashes which took a loosely humanoid shape with arms, legs and a head. Its eyes and mouth were gaping, fiery holes in the cloud. It was really stunning and very realistic.

Music:

The music of Inkheart was a beautiful accompaniment to the movie that added a lot of emotional dimension and atmosphere. I really enjoyed the music at the start, which was eerie, beautiful and mysterious and drew the audience right in. In contrast, Dustfinger’s theme was wistful, sad and slightly gypsy-sounding. Use of a whole range of instruments gave different scenes distinction and variation from one another. Use of choirs as part of the score also added to the overall atmosphere of the film. When all these elements were combined, the result was music that moved with the movie and made the audience feel as if they were part of the movie too.

Things I wasn’t really happy about:

I can’t think of anything major I wasn’t happy about, so this list is going to be small and rather nitpicky:

·         Mo’s voice (Meggie’s too, for that matter), wasn’t as beautiful as described in the book

·         The ‘Joy of Reading’ theme wasn’t picked up on as much

·         I would have really loved to see the scene where Mo and Meggie write notes to each other in Elvish… simply because that would have been kind of cool… but yes, you can probably see that I’m really running out of ideas here…

·         Oh yeah, Farid looked a bit like a girl with his long hair and eye makeup

As you can see, this isn’t a particularly big list, and my points are slightly irrelevant. That’s how much I liked the movie!

Things I was happy about:

*laughs* Where do I start?

·         Family friendly movie

·         Characters- Dustfinger particularly

·         Plot fairly close to the book

·         Props/scenery

·         Special effects

·         Music

Altogether:

The film is absolutely fantastic. I really loved it, and, dare I say it, it was quite a bit more enjoyable than the book (for me, anyway). Of course, it doesn’t come close to the Chronicles of Narnia or Lord of the Rings or National Treasure or Inception or anything like that, but is a great flick for the family to watch on a cold Friday night with lots of chocolate in arm’s reach. I would definitely recommend it to any fans of Inkheart who want a lively, close adaptation of the book.

By the way, I apologise for this review perhaps being slightly sloppy. My major LotR project preoccupies my mind at the moment, so my comparative analysis has taken a bit of a small blow. Nevertheless, I will endeavour to post a new review every 2 weeks or so. Happy New Year, bookworms!

~SON

Voyage to the Cinema

*Warning, mild spoilers*

Greetings! I assume you have visited this blog to hear a technical, in depth review of the film 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader'. This is the first film review I have ever written, so feedback would be very much appreciated!

So, this is my first post. Started up this blog from request of someone on NarniaWeb. Don't know if anyone's going to read it, but you never know until you try, hey?

So, I dragged 8 friends of mine to the cinema to see VDT with me. I felt extremely sorry for the friends who were sitting either side of me, because throughout the whole movie I was whispering to them and muttering under my breath everything that deviated from the book. I did warn them before hand, though...

Anyway, without further ado...

Overall position of the film:

I would say that VDT is somewhere between LWW and PC, from a Narnia fan's perspective. Not quite as good as LWW, but so much better than PC. A HECK OF A LOT better than the trailers!!! The trailer showed pretty much the worst parts of the film, so if you see it, rest knowing that it will at least be better than the trailers. As far as films go, it is quite a good flick. As far as Narnian films go, I think it did the film series justice.

Plot:

Okay, they changed the plot around quite a bit. At first, they're looking for the 7 lords, but then there's the whole 'evil mist' thing related to Dark Island that takes up most of the movie. Which, to me, was rather annoying. It ruined the wonderful realness and episodic nature of the book. Don't get me wrong, I completely understand why they did it like that, after all, it's supposed to be a Hollywood movie, and it needs to have a plot and all. But to me, it was almost as if it was too 'epic', if you get what I mean. They tried too hard to come up with an action packed plot, and it ruined the thing a bit. Voyage of the Dawn Treader, if you think about it, is such a unique book. It has no dominant bad guy, and no huge battles or anything, but nevertheless it has such a wonderful storyline and is filled with as much adventure as you could ever want! (This is me agreeing with someone whose post I cannot locate somewhere on NarniaWeb) Really, if you ask me, the story didn't need to be changed. The error the filmmakers made was that they destroyed the book's uniqueness and tried to make VDT more like other fantasy films. And were very unoriginal in doing that, I must confess. Still, I suppose it could have been worse. The battle at the end of the movie was perhaps unnecessary, but admittedly very exciting. It had me sitting on the edge of my seat!

Altogether, the plot changes did annoy me quite a bit. However, they weren't unbearable and acheived the filmmakers' aim of making the story less 'episodic'.

Characters:

Caspian- Lost the Spanish accent! Yay! Now he just needs to get a haircut! Of course, he had a beard in this movie. If you ask me, that just made him look like a woman with facial hair, but some of my friends (Fan girls, cough cough) did not share the same opinion. About his actual character, they made him seem a lot more composed than he was in the book, with hardly any faults. This is one of the main points they slipped up on in the movie! Probably the main human character in the book is Caspian, and I love how VDT is a story about him learning what it is to be a king. The movie did not have this, which I was very annoyed with and will discuss in more detail later in this review. However, the friendship he forms with Edmund, Eustace and Lucy by the end of the movie I liked very much. I found that even though I am of the opinion that they should have cast a younger, blonder Caspian with shorter hair, I liked Ben Barnes as Caspian in this movie better than I did in PC.

Edmund- Not actually as much of a jerk as he was made out to be in the trailers. Still a jerk at times, but overall his character was not too bad. Nothing like Peter in PC, I'm glad to say. He's been second in command all his life, and now he wants to be in charge a bit more. Fortunately, as was in the book, he and Caspian only have one fight, on Deathwater Island. After that, he and Caspian get along well to the point that they are like brothers, which is quite sweet. Their friendship grows as strong as Eustace and Reep's, which is quite a strong bond. Overall, I think that while it is slightly illogical for Edmund to go from someone so strong in their resolve to follow Aslan (PC) to someone who is tempted by gold and the White Witch again (VDT), Edmund is a very believable character in this film, and by the end he is again a favourite character.

Lucy- The whole thing about Lucy in this movie is that she does not think she is as pretty as Susan and she wishes she was. They sort of expanded on her desire to be like Susan in one scene of the book to make it most of the scenes in the movie. It's a bit cringey at the beginning, I must admit. But after that, it's fairly believable. Not that I have to like her being like that, but as they are making her a few years older in the movie than she was in the book, I can see why they thought it was a logical decision. In the movie, the spell is not to make her beautiful, but to actually make her into the person she wants to look like. The problem in the movie is that she actually says the spell, and dreams of what would have happened. Not only is this unoriginal (a dream? Come on!), but it destroys the point, because she has already recited the spell and there is supposedly no turning back from there. So they probably should have showed her what would have happened had she recited the spell before she recited the spell. By the end of the movie, however, she is back to the Lucy we all know and love.

Reepicheep- I was a bit disappointed with Reep's role in this movie, I must say. Being my absolute favourite character in all seven books (apart from Aslan, which is a given), I was hoping for this movie to focus quite a lot on Reepicheep and his yearning to sail to the end of the world and to find Aslan's country. However, they did not spend nearly enough time on this and instead spent a lot more time on him being Eustace's mentor and friend. I did not mind the mentor part, because it really shows Reep's decency and it was very in character of him, but I was just a bit disappointed about them not making him that enthusiastic about sailing to the end of the world. *sigh*

Aslan- Slightly disappointing. It seemed so corny whenever Aslan came and talked, as if he was some wise tribal leader giving out fortune cookies or something. I found myself even wincing in some places, it seemed so forced. But the movie was redeemed at the end, when pretty much everything he said to the Pevensies and Eustace was taken directly from the book. I would have liked for Aslan as a lamb to make an appearance, but I admit that may have slightly confused people who haven't read the books.

Eustace: I have left Eustace for last because, quite frankly, he was my favourite. Some of my friends came out of the cinema saying, "I hated the actor that played Eustace!" (of course, they hadn't read the book). I strongly argued against them, because he was every bit as beastly and arrogant and annoying and comical as I imagined him when I read the book as an eight year old. Will Poulter was perfect for the part and played him brilliantly. He spent a bit longer as a dragon than I would have liked, but again, that's just Hollywood. It's worth seeing the movie simply for the sake of watching a childhood memory come to life before your eyes! Hooray, Will!

Themes:

What they did with the themes was slightly weird, I thought. The main theme was temptation. Thing is, that wasn't exactly the biggest theme in the book. I thought that the most prominent themes in the book were redemption, discovery and finding Aslan, so I was quite surprised that they had focussed on temptation. However, it fit in well with the story and Dark Island and everything, so thematically it wasn't too bad, I suppose. And they still kept the other themes in there.

Spirital stuff:

Well, this morning when I was at church, I was talking to some of the elders who had seen the movie bit had not read the book. To my excitement, they had picked up many spiritual aspects of the film as a result of the plot changes! Stuff like the 'star messenger' and 'the beast'. So they thought it was a very spiritual movie. They were quite surprised when I informed them that none of this was in the book. I wonder if the filmmakers were actually aware they were including those things...

Anyway, for me, the movie did have quite a few Christian messages, similar to the book. It emphasised that Aslan can help you overcome temptation, that only He can help you out of your sin/blindness (grace is given, not earned- go Douglas Greasham!) and that He has another name in our world (YES!)

Props/scenery:

The dawn treader was absolutely amazing! It was precisely how I imagined it and I honestly can't think of any changes they could have made... except for perhaps having a rampant lion on the sail rather than some strange design. BUT THE SAIL WAS PURPLE!!! Thank goodness for that! The rest of the scenery was quite good, I'll say. I loved the Magician's Island especially, with the Dufflepuds, the garden and the library that I'll admit made me drool slightly.

Music:

Okay, so I read this interview that someone had with David Arnold about a month ago, and it made me so excited about VDT's score. He was so humble and he had read the book as extra research for inspiration. Did the music live up to my expectations? No. For most of the movie, I didn't even notice the music. When I did, I wasn't blown away by it. David Arnold is a nice guy, but they should have got Harry to do the score again. It would have probably been more original than this. The end song for the credits, 'There's a place for us', was not particularly original or exciting. Overall, it was not bad but not particularly good either.

Things I really wasn't happy about:

The thing I was probably most disappointed about in the movie was a certain scene they did not include, which was where Caspian wants to go with Lucy and Edmund and Eustace to wherever they're going, and everyone tells him he can't come, and he has a tanty but then Aslan speaks to him and he sees how childish he's been and apologises. That is one of my favourite scenes in the book, and yet they do not include it!

The scripting was really where it all went wrong, I think. Sometimes the way the characters interact with one another just seems fake and unnatural and put-on. It leaves so much to be desired, I reckon, personally. Lewis' dialogue would have done much better.

The editing also was not really at its best. It made some scenes awkward and others confusing. Most of my friends I went to see it with had not read the book and were very confused in some parts because the editors cut out important dialogue and scenes.

They cut out Ramandu! How could they?

Things I was happy about:

No kissing! YAY!!!!!!!!!!

Eustace

The Dawn Treader

Friendships formed (Lucy with MLG, Caspian and Edmund and Eustace and Reep)

Set up for Silver Chair at the end of the movie

Aslan at the World's end

Altogether:

I know that my review has been quite critical, but it really is quite an amazing movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's exciting, adventurous, and has still, despite everything, managed to carry with it the spirit of my favourite book. Does it do the book justice? No. Nothing ever will. Is it worth watching? Yes, absolutely.