At best The Pagemaster is a mediocre animated feature film for young children, but even then I think I’m being rather generous. A cosseted boy is transported to a fantastical world of classic literature as he tries to find his way home. On the way he meets Captain Ahab, Dr Jekyll and Long John Silver yet it is only marginally as exciting as those great works.

Even for 1994 the animation is far from accomplished but it is serviceable enough, even if the art direction is a little ugly. The problem comes in the stilted episodic structure which struggles to develop the characters and there is a distinct lack of genuine peril and decent jokes. Macaulay Culkin plays against type for once whilst he is offered decent support from Patrick Stewart and Christopher Lloyd. Unfortunately Whoopi Goldberg is terrible in a role she seemed to play frequently back in the ‘90s. The film attempts to teach children the power of books and in truth it does a great job as after half an hour they will be bored of the film and want to go and read a novel instead.