Quite possibly one of the worst adaptations ever
924717
I understand when movies can't fit everything in the book into the movie, but it's like they didn't even read the books.  How did this movie get such high reviews?  Basically, my review is this... If you liked the books, you probably shouldn't watch this movie or really the one before it as well.  If you didn't read the books, well I don't really recommend watching it anyway, but maybe it's worth one more star.
65245
I am a Jane Austen fan, but I would not call myself a purist. I understand that film and books are different media, and thus sometimes there needs to be some creative changes when adapting a novel into film. An overview of what was GOOD about this film:

1. The Cast: Way better than the 1995 adaptation in my opinion. They actually looked the right age, and fit what I think most people imagine when thinking of Ann Elliot and Frederick Wentworth.

2. The Costumes: Not so fancy and elaborate as to elicit doubt as to their authenticity. I thought they were appropriate.

3. The Scenery: Some interesting shots of some beautiful places in England were there.

4. Accurate: Up until the last 10-20 minutes, the diversions from the original story were not that big of a deal (i.e. that Mrs. Clay's husband died instead of whatever shameful thing happened in the book).

Why it SUCKED:

1. Directing: Holy Shake Cam, Batman. So annoying. It got awfully old fast. And WAYYY too many head on shots. I think the director was trying to be artistic, but it came off as amateur and stupid.

2. Diary-writing: Please, if you are going to rip off the Mansfield Park adaptation from 1999 with her writing, go long or go home. The occasional entries into her diary with terribly close ups were just strange and felt out of place.

3. The last 10 Minutes: OH. MY. GOODNESS. This is one of the sweetest moments in all of Austen's writings, and it is RUINED by the completely asinine scene where Ann is RUNNING through Bath. Not just running, but panting in front of a shake cam. For 5 minutes. She must fine Frederick! Where could he be? Essentially she runs all the way to the Crofts only to find out he is back where she started at Camden Place. And then, after the drawn-out, awkward, and painful to watch running scene, we see them kiss. But first she has to decide if she is going to eat him or kiss him. Mouth open, leaning in. For 30 seconds. I swear it seemed like an eternity. WTF.

If you want to see a rushed, thrown together version of Persuasion, this is your film. If you want to see an adaptation that truly brings the novel to life, despite its too-old cast, watch the 1995 version with Ciaran Hinds.
155609
Oh my word, this was a bad movie. You can tell from the first 2 minutes that it will be unpleasant to watch.

Unfortunately, I kept on watching hoping for it to get better. The truth is, it does get slightly better, but not by much.

It's really sad this kind of movie is not made to leave a legacy as well as make a profit, it clearly was made just to make money. That's business I guess, but I can't imagine anyone having interest in reading the novel after watching this adaptation.

So what's wrong with it?
-It's so bad it almost feels like satire, but it's not intended to be! At least I don't think so.
-Casting - I love mostly unknown actors, but pick some that fit the roles! d'Artagnan is a horrible child in this version. And the Cardinal? Oh my, he's about as evil as a bunny rabbit. The only person that can act is the Queen and she gets about 2 minutes to do it!
-Plot - Holes left and right. And are we supposed to believe that there is actually chemistry between d'Artagnan and Constance? It's painful to watch their forced interactions.
-TONS of overdone CGI - And I mean nearly EVERYTHING. It ruins the entire experience. A distant cutaway is one thing, but it's nearly everything, including anytime there are more than 10 soldiers on screen.
-Absurdly over the top with little grasp on reality - Everything from flying boats to invincible characters.

What's good about it?
-The costumes are very well done. This is where it gets confusing. Why do such a good job on those (even if they are not historically accurate), yet bomb the rest of the movie?
-There are some beautiful interiors of buildings.
-Like mentioned before, the actor who plays the Queen does a good job.

Overall it just doesn't have any magic and doesn't feel special in any way. If you're going to do a bad movie, that's fine, but don't ruin such a great story. Poor Alexandre Dumas must be rolling in his grave.  I know movies are incredibly complex to make, but I can't possibly imagine any director with any sense of pride or quality would release this to the public. How embarrassing.
3348404
I would like to give it a zero but that was not an option.  The revised narrative was trite and derivative, the original plot was far more interesting and internally consistent.  The treatment trivialized the characters and got lost in its own CGI and forgot to maintain any depth or social relevance. The dialogue was often vapid and lacked authenticity or humor. Devotees of the cartoon series must be bitterly disappointed by this poorly adapted derivation.
910839
It may be the most accurate version yet filmed, but accurate doesn't necessarily mean entertaining. This very cheap production looks like it was made for Dutch television in 1953. Horrendous dubbing, muddy grainy picture and atrocious editing make this one nearly unwatchable. At a ponderous 135 minutes, you'll wish you were dead long before it's over. The complete lack of any familar names in the credits should be a tip-off; despite the so-called "co-production" with MGM/UA, no American studio would ever release this. Don't trust the 1999 release date; it truly appears to have been filmed on 16mm in the 1970s.
***Addendum:  A check of the Internet Movie Database reveals this to be a cut-down version of a 1981 Soviet TV Miniseries, which explains the dubbing, grainy 16mm picture, choppy cutting and lack of any recognizable names.  "Fred Stack" is actually Fyodor (Fedya) Stukov.  Some people may think this is a fine production, but you should know what you are ordering.
If "accuracy" and faithfulness to the book are what you're after, this one may have some value as a curiosity, but if you want to be entertained or to introduce the kids to classic stories, skip this one and read them the book.
704134
The only good thing about this movie is the animation - it is stunning. If you are an animation buff - it is worth watching. However, the animation does not make up for the appalling script, and the insult this movie is to fans of the books. The books are a great series and are worth reading. I have read them all and thoroughly enjoyed them.
I understand that some changes need to be made when translating a book to film, however there are some changes that unforgivable. In addition they tried to cram too much into one movie. The movie technically covers three books - The Capture, The Journey and The Rescue. However the changes at the end are so great there is nothing in the third book that is remotely similar to the movie.
***Spoiler alert***
Firstly they changed the concept of the books, and the main characters. Soren and Kludd were not taken by the Pure Ones. Kludd booted Soren out of the nest so he could join the Pure Ones (although you don't find that out until much later in the books).
Secondly, they changed the main characters - The Band, mainly that of Twilight who was a warrior not a sop with a lute. Soren did not like Otulissa (who was a goody goody pain in the butt who never stopped talking). Ezylryb never wore battle claws and did not fight (which also came out later in the books).
The introduction of a traitor within the Great Tree was an abysmal addition to the story and the character did not exist in the books.
The ending was also sanitised - to a happy ending where Soren met his parents and lived happily at the Great Tree - Kids are tougher than you think and that sort of ending really stuffed the story.
The other thing - why did they place the movie in Australia. The books were set in Northern England and isles and there was no Echidna.
4490061
I gave it two stars (versus none) for the extra footage that I was extremely excited to see.  I've read the book a million times and have always said that this film is one of the closest adaptations of a book I have ever seen.  To find out the rest of the material would be included, all these years later, was exciting.  My husband ordered it for me as he knew I would want to see it.  He had never seen it and I couldn't wait for him to see this classic.  What a let down - the music ruined the entire movie.  The new music made it seem campy and moronic.  Before, you felt the pain of the characters' as they faced their situations.  It all felt genuine and you could understand why so many of them went on to the careers they did.  If this had been the original, I doubt any of them would have had a career or that we would be talking about the movie.  The music changes the feel of the movie and almost lampoons the material.  My husband couldn't believe this was one of my favorite movies.  I tried to explain this was NOTHING like the movie I knew, but he will never know as he now has zero interest in seeing the original version.  I will be showing the original to my children, not this piece of garbage.  Shame on you Coppola.
1231924
I was a great fan of Red Dwarf for years. Season VII put me right off, and while its successor improves minutely, the difference is so very small its hardly detectable. None of the capable actors are given humourous material  to work with - and we know they /can/ - and much of the satire is  grimace-inducing rather than the intended effect. Avoid at all costs. Or  rather pick up any vid from the first six seasons...
3594239
Having seen the first two movies on DVD, I have to say that watching the third film in the series, the Return of the King, was probably the most baffling and dissapointing experience in all my years of watching film.
First off, whatever contract negotiations that were involved in making the third film animated were just completely wrong headed.  The animated characters look nothing like thier real life counterparts, and Aragorn gets far less screen time then the title would suggest.  Even so, it would have been nice to have the original stars (Ellijah Wood, Ian Mckellen, et al) at least lend thier voices to the characters.  One can only surmise that the Producers of these films thought that audiences would be so wrapped up in the story that they wouldn't care if the final installment was mailed to people on cocktail napkins.
And there is also so much that has not paid off in this third installment, not the least of which is:  Where is Arwen?
I put the third movie next to the others in my collection, but somehow it doesn't seem to fit.  Maybe I have to watch it a few times more.
1829421
I was REALLY looking forward to this mini-series.  Then, I actually saw it.  Perhaps it was better in the wide-screen version, as suggested by another reviewer, but surely it couldn't be any WORSE an adaptation!
Where is the Hall of Bright Carvings?  Why does a 14 yr.old look 28?  Why are scenes there that do not exist in Peake's writings??  (Steerpike "dropping in" on Titus' naming ceremony, for instance.)
Christopher Lee was the best thing about it.
If you HAVEN'T read the novels and enjoy fantasy, you will probably enjoy this video/DVD.  If you know the works, steer clear of this one.  :(
3977990
While this may be a cult classic or favorite, you really have to put up with a pretty terrible story line, awful acting, some pretty awful overdubbing, and ridiculous scenarios.  They are so far fetched that they prevent one from effectively "suspending disbelief" and just enjoying the film.  I mean, it's one thing to know that you have to turn off your brain and enjoy something, but turning it off this far is pretty difficult.  And the overdubbing - the dialogue is completely overdubbed, as far as I can tell.  Very distracting.  Makes you wonder why it was that way - was the original audio so bad that they couldn't use it?  Anyway, the film was not interesting enough for me to spend the time researching why they overdubbed.  I got this one for a "horror film fest" at Halloween, based on the endorsement of Eli Roth (Hostel), and while I'm glad I saw it once, I'm quite certain I'll never watch it again and it was a huge disappointment relative to the endorsement.  Perhaps it has historical significance and should be respected and appreciated for that, but in an of itself it's not good.  Beware.
3600595
I was very excited when I saw the previews for this movie. Finally, I thought, Disney was going to do a truly "classic" remake based entirely on the books, themselves. Unfortunately, this was not the case. It's a reboot, yes - but more so a reboot of the Disney Pooh World and not a reboot of CLASSIC Winnie-the-Pooh.

The animation was tight and charming, which was a plus. I also greatly enjoyed the "book" portions, where characters meandered on pages and walked across sentences. The letters even fell from the pages to interact with the animated portions. Genius stuff there. Very cute and very likeable and an obvious nod to Pooh's beginnings on the written page.

However, instead of rebooting the series to remain truer to the original works... They've rebooted the series to basically change it even MORE so from the original works in order to, apparently, be less of a retread. Well, Disney, you can't have it both ways. You can't both "reboot" a series AND present unknown material. Had this movie stayed true to the original book stories and kept the charming portions that Disney did add orignally (namely, those wonderful SONGS), this could've been an epic reboot. As it is... I feel it's even worse than the originals it was meant to "refresh".

The songs are terrible. Really, truly terrible. Don't even get me started on the "Everything is Hunny" song portion, which has Pooh biting into a Pooh made out of hunny. Yes. Life-sized Poohs made of hunny spring out of a giant jar... and then Pooh EATS HIMSELF. Is this cannibalism? What is this? This is weird. That's what it is.

Then we have the Backson. Now, I was happy to see Owl's classic mis-reading of Christopher Robin's "back soon" note... but it quickly degenerated into utter and complete nonsense that never occurred in the book at all. Then this nonsense started sucking in other tales and chapters from the books, covering them in gooey nonsensicalness and spreading the nonsense even further. Disney basically took a small portion of ONE tale and turned it into the entire basis for several tales' existences and... Well, suffice to say, this basically turned what I THOUGHT would be an authentic re-telling of the classic stories into an exercise in how many ways you can change classic stories so they retain only the barest framework of what they once were.

Also, Winnie-the-Pooh would never stick his best friend Piglet's head into a beehive and then hit it with a stick. Come on now, Disney. That's entirely out of character. I did get some laughs from "Tigger Two" but that whole part was just ridiculous nonsense that never happened, either.

Ultimately, this was a cute and charming movie... if you're a child or a fan of Disney's rendition of Pooh. However, even then, I would imagine this film would feel a bit... familiar in that "haven't I seen this before?" way, only with worse music this time around and some unfortunate dabblings in eating food that is shaped like yourself. But since this IS ultimately a children's movie and I think children would be amused by it, I'm giving it 3 stars, instead of the 2 I would've given it otherwise.

At least Gopher wasn't in it.
2574286
The original The Poseidon Adventure isn't exactly a film so good that it couldn't stand remaking. The first half hour before the wave hits is like a very badly written episode of The Love Boat, with painfully on the nose dialog ("What kind of priest are you?" "I'm a renegade! The very best kind!") and hideously stereotyped characters. In fact, truth to tell, it's a pretty pedestrian affair even after the ship goes bottom up: strip away its high concept and all you're really left with is a long, slow wade to the grave for some of the characters en route to the cheapest closing sequence ever fobbed off on an audience in a major studio picture. Aside from the odd bit of dialog about the importance of life in the face of death or Gene Hackman's occasional tirades about or against God that hint at someone striving for a big theme, there's not that much of Paul Gallico's original religious allegory left either (if memory serves, in the novel the Reverend Scott had 12 passengers following him on his path to martyrdom). Worse, some of the performances are just excruciating to watch (particularly Red Buttons) while Roddy McDowall's attempt at a Scottish accent is particularly painful. It has its moments, but far fewer than you'd think.

No complaints about Fox's special edition - a surprising commentary from Ronald Neame (who has never made any secret of his dislike for the film in the past), several featurettes, trailers and stills gallery - although it is irritating that Fox have inexplicably cropped the original 1972 making of featurette to 1.85:1 when it was originally fullframe.
2212460
This badly dated film is the most faithful adaptation of "I Am Legend", a short novel written by Richard Matheson.

But, sadly, that does not make it the best.  It does, however, make it more worthwhile than the waste of time with Will Smith, "I Am Legend" from 2007.  That movie basically trashed everything good about Matheson's original story in favor of 'been there/done that' zombie nonsense.

"The Last Man On Earth" features a poorly cast Vincent Price (in a downright woeful performance) as the only survivor of a plague that has either killed everyone or turned them into vampires.  Price is terrible in this film.  He portrays Robert Morgan (Neville in the book) in the most one-dimensional way possible.

In case you are wondering which adaptation is the best, it is "The Omega Man" starring the late great Charlton Heston.
48894
The pretentious reviewers will insult you for not being cultured enough to enjoy this Broadway adaptation, but this is not the stage show. This is a pile of muck. The storyline was convoluted, the singing was sub-par and the film ran an hour past a logical conclusion. The last 60 minutes was unwatchable and felt like a tin shanty tacked onto this double-wide of a movie. In fact, I wondered if it wasn't produced by Jerry Springer when it seemed the Prince and The Baker's Wife were getting frisky despite his recent betrothal to Cinderella. Often it was unclear where characters had disappeared to and I found that none of the actors evoked anything to connect one to said characters. Skip this one, especially if you intend to watch it with children; the scenes are a little too intense and despite a PG rating it is clearly for adults.
3549599
If you loved the multi-award-winning short story and/or novel you will be deeply disappointed by this movie adaptation. It glances over a lot of the highlights like a flat stone across a lake, without ever showing any understanding at all of what the story is actually about. Instead of being a child Ender is a prepubescent pretty boy. He is not ignorant of what is happening, which is one of the things that make the original story so morally ambiguous, he is quite well aware that he is belong trained to run the show. The script is plebeian and the special effects cannot make up for the poor acting and plodding direction. Maybe one day it will be remade iby someone like Joss Whedon. Well, I can dream.
2521813
I agree with the above review by Mr. Santos but not for the same reasons or, at least, the same order of reasons. The fact that the TV director (here is where Brian Large makes all the difference) chose to focus on Placido Domingo more than it should be recommended is bad. But in time we get accustomed and even forget that Placido is there. What we cannot forget and never will, even after months after having seen this recording, are the tremendously ugly, horrific and tasteless costumes and scenery.

The concept behind this staging was that if a butterfly is an insect and the heroine is called Butterfly, then she should be dressed as such an insect, antennae and all. And all the other characters, why not, should be insects as well.  That is why Suzuki appears like what seems be a giant moth, Sharpless like a huge kind of beetle, the chorus that enter with Butterfly look like a caterpillar, Goro like a disgusting cockroach from the filthiest gutter, the son Dolore like a ten year old fat and slow lady bug, Yamadori, what can that be? a silkworm? and Kate, what is that? Is she a giant ant or a disproportioned wasp? I don't know, everything is so incompetently designed that it is diffidult to make the correct guesses.

Now, someone could be asking, and what about Pinkerton? Well, aye there's the rub, for he does not have antennae so he is not an insect. Could he be a rat? He is dressed in a black uniform as someone out from Marlon Brando's gang in the film "The Wild One", only he forgot to bring the motorcycle. He has very black sideburns, a goatee to go with it and he wears a thin ponytail. What can he be? Here I give up.

Oh, I forgot to tell that during the "humming chorus" there appears someone dressed like a black spider and after some slow and demented steps of ballet throws its net over Suzuki and Dolore, not to eat them but to protect them. Then the spider goes away and when the sailors begin to sing she returns and picks

its net back.

The sets, or better yet the one piece of set, resembles a part of the desert where Manon Lescaut dies in Puccini's opera. Meaning what? With what purpose?

Well, and what about the singing and playing? The singing is good but it gets hampered by the dreadful outfits, with Daniela Dessi having to fight with collars, veils and tails. Fabio Armiliato and Juan Pons, both also excellent singers, deserved a better fate than this. They should have refused to appear so ridiculously dressed.

Placido Domingo is there allright but I think he is feeling a little bit ashamed at having to be a part of such a terrible disaster.

I don't intend to watch it again and would only wish that Guillermo Mariotto (costumes) and Arnaldo Pomodoro (set) should give my money back