The fantasy-adventure "Inkheart" features creatures and castles. Medieval hallucinations. Flying monkeys. Ominous, sky-filling specters. Helen Mirren on a motorcycle. It's not what anyone would describe as "student filmmaking on a moderate budget." Unless you're Brendan Fraser. And you mean it as a compliment.

Fraser, the most unlikely swashbuckler in films, has a different perspective than most on films that cost less than $145 million (the estimated budget on his last epic, "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor").

"With these films that rely so heavily on CGI you can get lost in all that sound and fury and noise," Fraser said. "And there's got to be a story. And people you care about. If you don't care about the people, you're just watching a pyrotechnics display. And hey, I like fireworks, but the fun along the way is you also have to care, or you're cheating the audience."

"Inkheart," based on the megaselling novel by German author Cornelia Funke, is a movie about books about books: Fraser's character Mo Folchart is a "silvertongue," a rare reader who can bring characters out of books while -- unfortunately -- sending others in. He and his daughter, Meggie (Eliza Bennett), have been on the run for years, looking for the one book that will enable Mo to retrieve Meggie's mother from the pages in which she's trapped, and send some unsavory literary criminals back where they belong.

It's an adventure, if not so much for Fraser, who made his career impact early on in such indie hits as "Gods and Monsters" but has been on the movie-spectacular track since the first "Mummy" remake in 1999. Yes, he's made "The Quiet American" and was in the Oscar-winning "Crash" in between a couple of "Mummys," but he's also done "Dudley Do-right" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D."

But Fraser, 40, is not apologetic. "Getting movies made is difficult," he said, "and you have to be much more selective about them in these specific times. If the first 'Mummy' movie made $25 million and was dead on arrival, who knows? I probably wouldn't be talking to you right now."

As for author Funke's suggestion of casting Fraser in the lead, director Iain Softley called it a "no-brainer." Not everyone has had the same impulse, or at least acted on it. "You know," Fraser said, "sometimes I learn later on that with some really interesting scripts, people wanted to come to me, but they assumed I wouldn't do it." This, because of his big-budget track record. "But really, I'm just looking for good, interesting things."

Right now, the future is wide open. "I'm happy to say I don't have a job coming up," the actor said. "I'll go hang with my kids. I think 'Inkheart' is a good movie for all the right reasons. It brings together parent and kids, doesn't rub your nose in attitude. It doesn't say 'Put down the game console, back away from the Internet, and eat your vegetables.' It makes literature accessible."