Rich Tyler (Macaulay Culkin) is a nervous, paranoid boy who lives with his parents Alan (Ed Begley, Jr.) and Claire (Mel Harris). If I had these two as parents, I would be nervous, too.
Rich is afraid of everything, quoting statistics, and rarely taking chances for fear of injury. One stormy day, he rides his super safe bike to the hardware store, but diverts to a library to get out of the rain. Mr. Dewey (Christopher Lloyd), the creepiest librarian ever, directs Rich to a pay phone so he can call his parents. Rich slips and knocks himself out, awakens magically animated, and is transported to a strange land where books can talk. Three books befriend Rich: Adventure (voiced by Patrick Stewart), Fantasy (voiced by Whoopi Goldberg), and Horror (voiced by Frank Welker). The books follow Rich on his quest for the giant EXIT sign that will lead him back to real life, and home.
The group run through familiar stories like Moby Dick, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, etc., yet this film finds a way to make these classics boring. The basic message is that children should read more. However, it seems Rich is reading, since he can quote safety statistics. So, he must read more fiction. No Shakespeare, but exciting fiction that can be touched on with cheap animation in a vehicle for its child star. The live-action opening and closing pieces had to have been done in a day. The animation is weak. The background colors will be vibrant, yet the foreground animated characters are washed out and look beige. Even at eighty minutes, this goes on forever, and ends with a couple of Oscar-hopeful songs about nurturing dreams and using your imagination. Too bad the film makers could not follow the advice of their own tunes.
"The Pagemaster" provides proof of Culkin's unhappiness with the industry, and I certainly felt his pain.
