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Pagemaster, The
Fox // G // May 28, 2002
List Price: $19.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
Richard Tyler (Macaulay Culkin) is a kid with an overactive imagination... of the wrong kind. He's obsessed with accidents and injury statistics, and as a result he's afraid to do just about anything other than cower in his room, which is plastered with warning posters of all kinds. Then one day while out on his bicycle, he's caught in a sudden downpour and takes shelter in a nearby building, which happens to be the library. To the chagrin of the librarian, he's uninterested in the books that line the shelves, until a touch of magic sends him into the world of the books themselves. Befriended by a swashbuckling novel named Adventure, he begins a voyage home that will call on him to face his own fears and discover inner strength.
The Pagemaster is mostly an animated feature, framed by live-action sections. I enjoyed the style of the hand-drawn animations, which are fairly simple without being simplistic. Each of the three main book characters, Adventure (voiced by Patrick Stewart), Fantasy (Whoopi Goldberg), and Horror (Frank Welker), has a highly individual and creative appearance that matches perfectly the way the voices are done. The voices are, in fact, uniformly excellent, which shouldn't come as a surprise given the slate of actors assembled: apart from Stewart and Goldberg, we also get Leonard Nimoy and Christopher Lloyd in supporting parts.
However, after watching this film, I have come to the conclusion that Macaulay Culkin may be famous, but he is a lousy actor. Or, at any rate, he is terrible in The Pagemaster, with his live-action performance characterized by wooden facial expressions and unconvincing body language. This became apparent to me at the point in The Pagemaster when the film switches to animation: I suddenly realized that the animated character of Richard Tyler was doing a significantly better job of acting than the live Culkin. Not good. Fortunately, the animated portion takes up most of the film, and Culkin does an adequate job of providing the voice for the cartoon boy.
It's hard to criticize a film that takes as its premise "reading is good"... but the truth be told, I really don't think that The Pagemaster does much with that premise. Look at it this way: if an alien visitor to the planet Earth saw this movie without some cultural explanations (we'll assume that our hypothetical alien speaks English) it would conclude that "books" are rectangular-shaped cuddle toys. Book-shaped objects are found throughout the film's scenes, and of course several of the main characters are, literally, books, but there are no scenes anywhere that involve actually reading these books. As I said, this may seem like splitting hairs unnecessarily, but it seems to me that The Pagemaster should have (and easily could have) gone just a step further in embracing its theme.
At only an hour and fifteen minutes, The Pagemaster is a good length for its target audience of kids, and the story keeps moving along at a lively pace that should keep them interested. I don't think there's a whole lot of substance for the adult viewer, but it's moderately entertaining at least. Readers who enjoy the works of Robert Louis Stevenson in particular will be tickled to see the number of references or actual story elements drawn from his books.
Video
Fox's DVD presentation of The Pagemaster is excellent, offering an anamorphic widescreen transfer of the film in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The image quality is excellent. The picture is sharp and clear, with no edge enhancement rearing its ugly head anywhere. Overall, the image is nice and clean, with almost no noise or flaws in the print. I did notice that the colors in some scenes appear slightly muted, but as most scenes feature natural-looking colors, I'd guess that any variation in the look of the film is in the original. Most scenes are in fact quite colorful, with strong, vivid colors and excellent contrast.
Audio
The Pagemaster's Dolby 5.1 track is used effectively throughout the film. Dialogue is carried cleanly and clearly, and the various music, voice, and effects elements of the track are well balanced. I was pleased with the excellent use of surround sound in the DVD; the soundtrack offers a nicely immersive experience, with the side channels getting put to good use on many occasions.
Extras
Apart from theatrical trailers, the main special feature on the disc (apart from a pan-and-scan version that's included) is a twenty-minute behind-the-scenes featurette. Unfortunately, it's a promotional-style piece that spends most of its time on summarizing the plot and showing clips from the film. The most interesting portion is in the last few minutes, which take a brief look at the creation of the animations for the film. The featurette ends with a rather insipid music video that is also included as a separate special feature.
Final thoughts
The Pagemaster is a movie that is aimed at a young audience and doesn't offer all that much to an adult viewer without kids. If you do have kids, it's a solid choice as a rental; if it turns out to be a hit with the family, you can always pick it up later on, but in any case it should offer an evening of reasonable entertainment and an attractive theme.
The Pagemaster is mostly an animated feature, framed by live-action sections. I enjoyed the style of the hand-drawn animations, which are fairly simple without being simplistic. Each of the three main book characters, Adventure (voiced by Patrick Stewart), Fantasy (Whoopi Goldberg), and Horror (Frank Welker), has a highly individual and creative appearance that matches perfectly the way the voices are done. The voices are, in fact, uniformly excellent, which shouldn't come as a surprise given the slate of actors assembled: apart from Stewart and Goldberg, we also get Leonard Nimoy and Christopher Lloyd in supporting parts.
However, after watching this film, I have come to the conclusion that Macaulay Culkin may be famous, but he is a lousy actor. Or, at any rate, he is terrible in The Pagemaster, with his live-action performance characterized by wooden facial expressions and unconvincing body language. This became apparent to me at the point in The Pagemaster when the film switches to animation: I suddenly realized that the animated character of Richard Tyler was doing a significantly better job of acting than the live Culkin. Not good. Fortunately, the animated portion takes up most of the film, and Culkin does an adequate job of providing the voice for the cartoon boy.
It's hard to criticize a film that takes as its premise "reading is good"... but the truth be told, I really don't think that The Pagemaster does much with that premise. Look at it this way: if an alien visitor to the planet Earth saw this movie without some cultural explanations (we'll assume that our hypothetical alien speaks English) it would conclude that "books" are rectangular-shaped cuddle toys. Book-shaped objects are found throughout the film's scenes, and of course several of the main characters are, literally, books, but there are no scenes anywhere that involve actually reading these books. As I said, this may seem like splitting hairs unnecessarily, but it seems to me that The Pagemaster should have (and easily could have) gone just a step further in embracing its theme.
At only an hour and fifteen minutes, The Pagemaster is a good length for its target audience of kids, and the story keeps moving along at a lively pace that should keep them interested. I don't think there's a whole lot of substance for the adult viewer, but it's moderately entertaining at least. Readers who enjoy the works of Robert Louis Stevenson in particular will be tickled to see the number of references or actual story elements drawn from his books.
Video
Fox's DVD presentation of The Pagemaster is excellent, offering an anamorphic widescreen transfer of the film in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The image quality is excellent. The picture is sharp and clear, with no edge enhancement rearing its ugly head anywhere. Overall, the image is nice and clean, with almost no noise or flaws in the print. I did notice that the colors in some scenes appear slightly muted, but as most scenes feature natural-looking colors, I'd guess that any variation in the look of the film is in the original. Most scenes are in fact quite colorful, with strong, vivid colors and excellent contrast.
Audio
The Pagemaster's Dolby 5.1 track is used effectively throughout the film. Dialogue is carried cleanly and clearly, and the various music, voice, and effects elements of the track are well balanced. I was pleased with the excellent use of surround sound in the DVD; the soundtrack offers a nicely immersive experience, with the side channels getting put to good use on many occasions.
Extras
Apart from theatrical trailers, the main special feature on the disc (apart from a pan-and-scan version that's included) is a twenty-minute behind-the-scenes featurette. Unfortunately, it's a promotional-style piece that spends most of its time on summarizing the plot and showing clips from the film. The most interesting portion is in the last few minutes, which take a brief look at the creation of the animations for the film. The featurette ends with a rather insipid music video that is also included as a separate special feature.
Final thoughts
The Pagemaster is a movie that is aimed at a young audience and doesn't offer all that much to an adult viewer without kids. If you do have kids, it's a solid choice as a rental; if it turns out to be a hit with the family, you can always pick it up later on, but in any case it should offer an evening of reasonable entertainment and an attractive theme.
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