... And the eerie cold mountain scenes, the oniric atmospheres, were quite well rendered. There's a supernatural, symbolic quality about it, which was a selling point of R. Sale's book. Also great were the actors (even if the bore few physical likeness to the people they impersonated), the nordic western sets and the languages used, both in white and red expressions, that felt authentic.
Alas, some irritants made the sum less than its parts; among them, the short running time (the movie was repackaged as a "Jaws-like" summer buster), the poor filming of the animatronics (whose rails are plain obvious in the picture) and, most of all, the lack of "red" chapters, that were not only essential to the story, but about half of the book itself. It could have been deeper.
Apart from that, actions scenes are great - since they're this movie's focus - and overall one gets a good time watching what can be described as an Old West myth.
Alas, some irritants made the sum less than its parts; among them, the short running time (the movie was repackaged as a "Jaws-like" summer buster), the poor filming of the animatronics (whose rails are plain obvious in the picture) and, most of all, the lack of "red" chapters, that were not only essential to the story, but about half of the book itself. It could have been deeper.
Apart from that, actions scenes are great - since they're this movie's focus - and overall one gets a good time watching what can be described as an Old West myth.