This old-fashioned, winningly sincere children’s fantasy stars Brendan Fraser as a “book doctor” who cares for old tomes and has the magical ability to summon characters from books to life. Years earlier he accidentally released into the present day an assortment of unsavory characters from a medieval adventure story, and now they threaten him and his preteen daughter (Eliza Hope Bennett). Adapted from a book by German children’s writer Cornelia Funke, the movie begins to seem a little overloaded and gimmicky once characters from children’s classics begin turning up (including Toto from The Wizard of Oz), but it’s handsomely mounted, with supporting turns by Helen Mirren as the girl’s flinty aunt and Jim Broadbent as the author of the book that caused so much fuss. Iain Softley (The Wings of the Dove) directed. PG, 106 min.