I think it is not controversial to refer to the 80s and 90s as the Golden Age of Children's television. This was the era where the transition from Saturday morning cartoons to 24 hour children's exclusive stations was in full swing. We had the glorious mornings of watching Transformers, GI Joe, My Little Pony, DuckTales, etc. It was an amazing time for children to enjoy shows that still entertain and enthrall over 30 years later.
Of course, I also think that it is no exaggeration to consider this era as the heyday of educational children's programming. Especially, ironically, the focus on teaching children to read and have an interest in reading. With shows like Reading Rainbow and Between the Lions, it was a great age for reading-oriented television programming, which I also think in hindsight was a shockingly selfless action. Television fundamentally wants you to keep watching so that you can be around for advertisements which make the TV studios and distributions channels money. To have a concerted effort to push kids away from television into the arms of their local library is frankly amazing, and I'm not certain in the current age of "banned" books that it would really fly anymore.
One of the films in this "inspiring literary interest" genre was 1994's The Pagemaster. For reasons I can only really go into in this review, this film has remained in my brain like a bad advertisement jingle. Between the film itself, the corresponding book that was released with the film, and the SNES video game that I played as a child, I was surprisingly saturated with what is generally considered a fairly forgettable 90s Macaulay Culkin vehicle. But returning my attention to the film, does it actually hold something special? Something that would enable it to remain within my mind, despite being only a slightly younger in age than I am.
***
- Produced by Colbath and Turner Feature Animation
- Directed by Joe Johnston and Maurice Hunt
- Running Time: 75 Minutes
- MPAA Rating: G
***
SUMMARY
For 10-year old Richard Tyler, the world is a terrifying place with statistical risks and dangers around every corner. Much to his parent's frustration and disappointment, Richard refuses to take any risk and lives his life in as much of a bubble as is possible. However, while running an errand for his father, Richard gets caught in a powerful storm and must take refuge in the local library.
While in the library, he is suddenly transported into a magical animated world where the books within the library come to life. Now he must traverse the realms of horror, fantasy, and adventure to find the mysterious Pagemaster, the magical guardian of the written word, and get back home; all the while teaming up with a trio of hilarious living book sidekicks: Adventure, Fantasy, and Horror, who seek to teach him that the world is filled with wonders and the value of imagination and courage.
***
REVIEW
Before I go into any further detail about The Pagemaster, I do believe it is important to recognize a bit of a bias that I have, all in the name of fairness and transparency. I do not care for Macaulay Culkin. I don't know what it is about him exactly, but I am just not a fan of his films or acting (often finding them stilted or underwhelming) and I think he comes off as kind of weird and off-putting in almost all of them. I know this is totally unfair to someone who many consider to be an essential element of their childhood, but it is what it is.
As a result, I do come into this film largely resigned to having to "deal" with Culkin's acting performance, and it really is the usual delivery. This was during that phase of Culkin's career where he was transitioning from "cute" kid into "awkward" pre-teen (I put air quotes around awkward because I've always thought he was a little awkward) and it really shows. Of course, I also have to admit that Culkin's awkward performance is negatively enhanced by his weird animation design.
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| What's wrong with your face!? |
The Pagemaster is a mix of live-action and animation, which was a very popular narrative style in the early 1990s. The live action segments are perfectly fine, nothing extraordinary but serviceable to getting us to the library and into the animated segments. The animated segments is where the meat of this story resides and they aren't too terrible. The character designs are, as I stated, either a hit (the living books) or an uncanny miss (Culkin does not look great in cartoon form). The backgrounds and backdrops are amazing and action is actually quite fluid. When watching the animated segments, I'm reminded of two animated films in particular. Cats Don't Dance, which makes sense since both films were released by Turner Feature Animation, and finally FernGully: The Last Rainforest. This comparison makes a little less sense because near as I can tell, these two films have absolutely nothing in common production-wise. Not one thing that I could find, and yet they have such a strange similarity in animation style and energy that I serious thought they were produced by the same company as well.
The film can basically be divided into five segments, the two live action segments that bookend the film, and three sections where Richard travels through horror stories, adventure stories, and fantasy stories respectively. Of the sections, I definitely think that the adventure segment takes up the lion share of focus, with the fantasy segment drawing something of the short end of the stick; being relegated mostly to a very nice musical montage and the final fight with a dragon.
It actually makes me think that if they adapted The Pagemaster to a modern audience, it would work really well as a streaming miniseries. Each episode of the series could focus on a specific classic novel and allow the story to set a more casual pace. As it stands the film can really only focus on three specific classic novels (The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde, Treasure Island, and Moby Dick) with the fantasy section again not really focusing on a any specific classic novel (accept maybe with subtle references to Mother Goose fables). A miniseries would allow for greater exploration of classic literature, but that is a personal take and ultimately the film does the best with what it has available.
Beyond the settings, the film really relies heavily on the performances of its characters. As you can imagine, Richard is fine. A little whiny and annoying but it is an essential part of the character and it definitely comes with the territory of him being played by Culkin. The other major players are the three talking books that accompany Richard on his adventure: Horror, played by the legendary Frank Welker, Adventure, played by Patrick Stewart, and Fantasy, voiced by Whoopi Goldberg. These three are absolutely amazing and easily the best part of the film, even if their eccentric personality end up kind of washing Culkin's performance out. We also have Christopher Lloyd who plays both the librarian Mr. Dewey and the titular Pagemaster (a very clever idea in my opinion) and he adds just the right amount of mystery and unease to transform the Pagemaster into a powerful, if distant, character. The characters and voice acting are really strong, with plenty of big names and industry staples in the voice acting lineup, its just that a lot of them either end up drowning Culkin out or being dragged by his poor and dispassionate delivery of lines.
The last element I really want to touch upon in this film is the music. Most of the soundtrack is fairly generic, which is weird because the film's composer was the legendary James Horner. However, there is one song that is just incredible and was actually what inspired me to review this film. I mentioned earlier that the fantasy segment had a musical montage in it. Well, the song that plays over that montage is also the primary credit song. It's called "Whatever You Imagine" and it was performed by Wendy Moten and it is utterly spectacular. This song is so damn whimsical and actually makes me think about what it feels to sit down and read a really good book. Its amazing but The Pagemaster, with this one song, actually achieves its goal. It inspires a passion for reading and classic literature. A trait that is so endemic for modern civilization and yet isn't promoted the way it was in my childhood.
So regardless of my opinions of Macaulay Culkin, I can't help but appreciate this film for what its attempted. Yeah, its got its issues. Yeah, the animation isn't always great or can even look off in character designs. The story could've used a few more editing passes, but ultimately I do believe that the sheer good intentions coming off this film count for so much more than the individuals flaws. This is a film that has passion involved, it loves literature and it wants you to as well.
So with that in mind, though I can't rate it high on the scale I use to judge the film, it should receive a special note that the film is still ultimately worth watching, if you can get around the negatives that I stated above.
VISUALS
- 5/10
SOUNDTRACK
- 7/10
CHARACTERS
- 5/10
STORY
- 5/10
FINAL SCORE - 5.5/10
***
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