Good concept, poorly executed.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The setup: A cowardly boy who buries himself in accident statistics enters a library to escape a storm only to be transformed into an animated illustration by the Pagemaster. He has to work through obstacles from classic books to return to real life.The verdict: It solidified the comeback for Culkin as a unique presence in American cinema. Yes, this does remind me a lot of Dragon's Den. In some ways it is the most ridiculous thing I've seen in years. Some of the dialog could be better. The story is well told and gives you a good idea of how Culkin becomes the hero. My only problem with the film was the supporting cast, but it's still okay.

When I was a little girl, I used to love this movie and I truly believe it deserves a better rating. I haven't watched it in years and yet, I still remember the huge library, the three different books (Adventure, Horror and Fantasy if I remember well), their related stories and universes. I remember understanding the cowardice of the boy (why are heroes always so confident?) and how he overcomes it. And as a French student of English literature, I believe it's a nice way for a child to approach some classics of British literature. It could even be used in schools (am I going too far? aha). Perhaps that if I watched it now, as an adult, I'd hate it. But does it really matter? It's meant for kids anyway!

Why is the movie telling kids to read more? Wouldn't that hurt your movie profit if all the children are reading books rather than watching your mediocre movie? I guess, I know why this movie bomb when it came out. Still, to me, personally. This movie isn't half bad. It's pretty OK to me. Take a look, it's in a book! Reading rainbow starts out, oops I meant, Page master starts out with ten year old Richard Tyler (Macaulay Culkin) who fears everything. By everything, I meant everything. He doesn't seem like not a real life character anyways due to his overused of statistics and encyclopedia size facts that come out of nowhere. I don't know why the movie choice Richard to be the main character, because he's probably had read some kind of book before. He had to get find those facts somewhere. He's already a book worm, but the movie is making him look like he never read a book before. One day, Richard gets caught in a harsh thunderstorm on a bike trip and takes shelter in a library. Here, he is met by Mr. Dewey (Christopher Lloyd), an eccentric librarian who tries to find a book for Richard and gives him a library card. Christopher Lloyd over acts and is somewhat creepy in this scene. Richard wanders off and finds a large rotunda painted with classic fictional characters that he supposing don't know of. Richard slips on some water that had dripped from his coat and falls down, hitting his head and knocking him unconscious. He awakens and finds the rotunda paintings melting, forming a wave of color that transforms him and the library into illustrations. This is where Director Jon Johnston ends, and directors of the animation parts, Pixote Hunt and Glenn Chaika start. Richard is approached by the Pagemaster (Also Christopher Lloyd) who sends him on a journey into the fiction section to find the "exit". It's funny how the Page Master puts Richard in life threating danger just to prove a point that he has courage in him. It's like putting a young baby in a lion cage and tell it to grow up. It's not like reading will make you brave, anyways. Only survivoring through those life threating events can do that. Reading about interesting characters in books isn't truly living, folks. Being a interesting character in real life and living through something is truly living. Along the way, Richard befriends three anthropomorphic books: Adventure (Patrick Stewart), a swashbuckling pirate like book; Fantasy (Whoopi Goldberg), a sassy but caring fairy tale book; and Horror (Frank Welker), a fearful "hunchbook" with a misshapen spine. I'm surprise that Sci-Fiction wasn't part of the group since a lot of children, I know. Read that. I guess nobody heard of that genre in Richard's world. At less, they didn't jump into young adult novels like Twilight. That would be horrible. The three agree to help Richard to find his way out if he checks them out with his library card. Together, the quartet encounter classic fictional characters and worlds on their way to the exit. I like how they try to put as much literature works into the film, but I have to question that most of the works they did put in, aren't technically for children. Example: the Hounds of Baskervilles has one of the hardest reading levels of all, due to its large amount of vocabulary, use of the English language, and large amounts of geographic and science facts. Not only that, it has a large amount of drug use, sex, and violence that isn't suite for children. Moby Dick wasn't written for children at all as well due to Melville employs stylized language, symbolism, slang language and the metaphor to explore numerous complex themes that would be way too complex for the normal ten year old first time reader. Still I like the fact, that they meet Dr. Jekyll (Leonard Nimoy) from the book Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Then Long John Silver (Jim Cummings) from Treasure Island. It's sad to say that both those classic animation characters are nothing like the literature in which they came from. Example: Dr. Jekyll, for example, isn't creepy and homicidal. He's just a scientist addicted to a potion that frees him from his uptight persona. It's only Mr. Hyde that acts upon crude action. It's ironic and hypocritical that the movie writer tries to use classic literary characters to make kids read books when the writer himself didn't read the books either. The characters were brief and unexplained, but also inaccurate. I do like how the majority of the cast has appeared in some form or another on Star Trek. The animation was pretty well. The paint dragon was badass for when this was made. If you look close, you'll find out that in the worlds are practically everything is made out of books. The rocks, the stairs, the houses. It's a nice little detail which the animators inserted. I love the soundtrack by James Horner. I thought the music in here was fantastic and often use in other film trailers and commercials. I find it weird that a movie is telling children to read, rather than schools or even the parents. I think the best way to get children to read is to turn off the television and read to them. Then allow them to read to you. Simple like that. You don't need this mess. movie to do that.

I only review the movies I really adore, some will slip that I don't adore but this one isn't one of them, it seems that over the years people have lost a lot of imagination, it seems as we go through the future we realize what cannot be true is so phony, but as I see it people will return to it one time, I am still a really liker of imagination, but people today don't wanna believe the things that no one can believe, so because of that this movie haven't got a lot of good reviews, I want to do this movie justice...The pagemaster is made for kids and adults who still dreams, it isn't the most serious movie at all but it does have some spots that has deemed it serious, mostly it is a movie that should be taken lightly.This movie wants us to be taught something like many others of its nature, in this movie we are taught two major things first 1. to take choices and not be afraid, to do things we normally would be a afraid of as a child, second 2. it teaches us the main thing, to believe, simply just to believe, we all know none of this is real but why do we have to disband these movies, they are imagination, fantasy something many today could need a whole lot more of.This movie is also done very good by the actors, they chose the right actors for every voice in the movie, but my favorite is of course Christopher Loyd as the Pagemaster, the one who granted a single wish for a kid who were afraid of everything.The music is perfect in this movie, as it is a fantasy music like this is needed, this is something people and companies have at least kept forever and haven't still forgot, now if only they would do the same for fantasy, for imagination, we all have a child in us, why grow up so fast, we get to be mature but that doesn't mean we have to let go the things that made us into what we are today, many of these movies have been forgotten but they will always stay inside us, so now it is time to say that this movie is all that it is a classic, a classic people just forgot.As I said above I only do reviews of movies I like, not movies I don't like so of course this is one of my favorite, I grew up watching movies like this, enjoy it, and for do yourself a favor and watch it again, slowly fall inside imagination, just one more time, it is worth it..."Shh I have a talent for guessing what people need"