The Pagemaster Reviews

The Pagemaster in my opinion, was a wonderful film, and I do think the 4.8 rating is too low. I have seen much worse movies, that are rated higher than that. Sure it's not Disney, but it is a good family film that I guarantee if you give it a chance that the whole family will love. The animation is not so bad, perhaps a little dated and rushed, but I've seen worse, and the dragon was excellent. The music by James Horner was beautiful, very fitting with what was going on on screen, very reminiscent of Land Before Time and Once Upon a Forest, and Whatever You imagine was amazing. The story tells of a young boy named Richard, who is serious and fearful of everything, until an unexpected visit to the library changes his life forever. I loved the story and the clever and diverse references to the literary giants, like Treasure Island, Jekyll and Hyde and Moby Dick, and the message of the film about facing your fears that doesn't preach. Macaulay Culkin is excellent here as is Christopher Lloyd, and Patrick Stewart (rousing and witty), Whoopi Goldberg (sugar and starch) and Frank Welker (in a fine Igor impression) expertly bring the snappy screenplay to life. I loved the witty banter between Adventure and Fantasy, and the librarian's rant about the different literary genres. And I don't think it is Macaulay Culkin or Christopher Lloyd's worst film, Culkin's was Richie Rich, Lloyd's was My Favourite Martian. All in all, a terrific film, with a 10/10. Bethany Cox

When I was a kid, I remember seeing a trailer for this movie. I eventually saw it after seeing the Nostalgia Critic's review of it, and I watched it, and... well, he was right about the part of this movie being a bit boring, but not entirely boring, and he got some parts of the message wrong. This movie is about becoming brave, which is what the timid Richard Tyler has to learn, so says The Pagemaster himself, played by one of my favorite actors, Christopher Lloyd.

On his quest, Rich comes across the swashbuckling Adventure, the sassy but sweet Fantasy, and the lovable cowardly doofus Horror, all 3 of them anthropomorphic books. The movie is fun and comical at times, but this isn't exactly a movie with the caliber of Disney.

My rating: 6/10

To be honest, I didn't expect much beforehand but it had been a while since I saw something starring Macauley Culkin so I thought I should give it a try. Even though I turned out to be indeed pretty disappointing, I still think the whole thing did have some potential. For this project which took more than 3 years to be completed, they hired two directors, the debuting Pixote Hunt for the animation and Joe Johnston for the live action scenes. Basically, the whole thing is some kind of mix of 'The Neverending story' and 'Roger Rabbit' but, unfortunately, it never reached the quality of those 2 movies. First of all, they could have get rid of the live action bits, the only reason they were there was to show Macauley Culkin in one of his last flicks before 'retiring'. Then, the animation was sometimes decent but most of the time not good at all and you could actually barely see what was on the screen. Finally, and above all, the story was not compelling at all and I was bored to death most of the time. To conclude, it could have been something but it was ultimately a failure and it is not really worth a look, even if you like the genre.

The Best Movie Ever.