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awitham68
Reviews
The Last Legion (2007)
Wasted Opportunity
About 40 minutes into the film I decided it was meant to be a family film. But no, a little while later I changed my mind and decided it was probably meant as an epic adventure but had seriously misfired.
In fairness to the cast, I thought they were all pretty good. Lots of reliable supporting Brit-actors. Thomas Sangster was fine, so too Colin Firth and I quite enjoyed Ben Kingsley's performance despite the Welsh accent.
What let the whole thing down was a lack of characterisation and time. When I watched the bonus features - the deleted scenes - I found that I would have included every one of them. The film was pretty short at 97 minutes and could easily have taken on another 20 minutes.
As it was, the characters were never fleshed out or developed. There was no time spent on building tension for the fight scenes. The supposed super-baddie - Vortigern - was no more than a bloke in a gold mask (and Sauron beat him to that!) who rode on 50 minutes into the film.
The director has to carry the can for this. It could have been okay but instead ended up as a mess. It's the sort of film that will languish in the bargain bins of DVD-land unless De Laurentis allows a re-cut and adds some weight to the film.
I think it could be worth a try.
Oliver Twist (1985)
The nearest to the book that we'll ever get
The BBC really know how to 'do' Dickens.
From Dudley Simpson's haunting title music to Eric Porter's sinister Fagin, this is truest adaptation of the book that I know.
The production values are spot-on, capturing the filth and seediness of Dickens' London. Michael Attwell is the most menacing of Bill Sykes and Ben Rodska makes Oliver innocent without being too goody-goody.
If that were not enough, the length of the production (6 hours) means that, for once, the sub-plots are included and the main plots are laid out as Dickens wrote them.
If 6 hours is too long then David Lean still represents the safest bet but, for the purist, this will probably never be improved upon.
Oliver Twist (2005)
A nice try but ultimately missing the point
Roman Polanski is a marvellous film maker and obviously loves the book but his adaptation misses the 'grit' of the novel.
Rachel Portman's music (surely too similar to her soundtrack for Nicholas Nickleby) sets too jaunty a tone for what should be a fairly dark story. The whole production follows suit, being too brightly-lit (even the dark night-time streets are spotlit rather than gas-lit), too colourful, too 'chocolate-box'.
Dickens would surely not have recognised such tidy streets such clean air. The sets are all sunlit, the children too healthy-looking (where did Dodger get that marvellous tan ?).
In 2 hours, subplots inevitably get cut but did they have to change details ? Oliver and Sykes certainly did not attempt to rob Mr Brownlow's house for a start.
The children are fine but Kingsley's Fagin does not convince, (his accent occasionally reminiscent of Monty Python) and Jamie Foreman does not menace as Sykes.
I'm sure many will love this for its colourful realisation of Dickens' world, but in the final analysis it's all too easy, all too sentimental. If you can't sit through the 6 hours of the BBC production, go for David Lean which at least has the bonus of greater atmosphere and Alec Guiness' marvellous fake nose !