The cinematography is amazing in this movie. The shots are well-thought out and almost every scene has its own beauty, especially the waterfall scenes. This isn't enough to save it, but it's nice.
The main problem is that there is no chemistry between Lewis and Stowe. Lewis seems so intent on creating an inner world for his character that he forgets there are other people around him. Stowe was OK, Studi was good, Steven Waddington was very good and may be the best thing about it. But all of the characters are flat and uninteresting.
It's a good story, and I'm saddened to see it mangled by this attempt. It's as if the makers of this movie wanted us to know this was LITERATURE and must be taken SERIOUSLY, and therefore everything is BIG and DRAMATIC and STENTORIAN. There is precious little subtlety, which is odd for an adaptation of a classic novel. I always cringe when a good battle scene is placed in an inferior movie, because all the work that went into that scene to make it look so good could have been put into the rest of the movie.
The main problem is that there is no chemistry between Lewis and Stowe. Lewis seems so intent on creating an inner world for his character that he forgets there are other people around him. Stowe was OK, Studi was good, Steven Waddington was very good and may be the best thing about it. But all of the characters are flat and uninteresting.
It's a good story, and I'm saddened to see it mangled by this attempt. It's as if the makers of this movie wanted us to know this was LITERATURE and must be taken SERIOUSLY, and therefore everything is BIG and DRAMATIC and STENTORIAN. There is precious little subtlety, which is odd for an adaptation of a classic novel. I always cringe when a good battle scene is placed in an inferior movie, because all the work that went into that scene to make it look so good could have been put into the rest of the movie.