marc-deleu
When I read the other reviews I can't believe they cover the same movie, Generally I'm not too critical and enjoy a wide variety of genres, in particular adventure stories and was looking forward to watching this. I haven't read the book but I doubt it would have any impact on my lack of appreciation for this movie. The characters are hollow, the storyline seems patched together and the dialogs are artificial.At the end of the movie, I was left wondering what the whole point of the story was. Perhaps I need to watch it again, perhaps I missed something, but I highly doubt it.
Cristi_Ciopron
This newer adaptation is charmless, unappealing, it lacks brio, energy and gusto, the desired Scottish accent sucks, Assante is no match for Finch, nothing recommended the director for the job of adapting a Scottish swashbuckler, the women, few as they are in Stevenson's chaste universe, are banal, yet the subject and the storyline are far too strong and the dynamism of the plot is delightful; my mother called it a Scottish 'Musketeers', a thorough swashbuckler. The action scenes are exciting and dynamic, the few duels are well shot. And it can be granted to dear Assante that he does a pretty good Stewart Breck. Some actors (such as the shipmen) are well—chosen, or at least the makeup did the job.Davie Balfour of Shaws steps into a world of murderers and bandits, dreadful hieroglyphs of evil. His story has been awesomely adapted for cinema some almost 50 yrs ago, as a movie with Finch.
Chevalier de Spindletop
This is an excellent movie in its own right and seems to be quite faithful to the book. There are elements of the movie that do not show up in RLS's Kidnapped, but there is a sequel, entitled David Balfour, which I have yet to read. I imagine that some of ragmop's complaints of inaccuracy may be answered by this book. My one suggestion would be for the viewer to do a little studying of the this period of Scottish history, as this will help make the movie flow better.As others have mentioned, this movie is made even better by the fact that it is even suitable for young children to watch. It would be nice if filmmakers followed this movie's example and made more action and adventure movies that are really safe for the entire family.
sharkinthesalsa
What a shame that the movie, while being excellent in its own right, has absolutely nothing to do with the original book by Stevenson. Aside from the names and places, only about 5% of the novel made it into the movie. As a fan of the book and some of the older versions of the movie, I was horrified by the amount of information in the film that was 'made up'. While I'm sure it was all accurate for the time period, very little of what occurred in the film ever happened or was even alluded to in the book. If you completely ignore the fact that the movie is based on a book this film is very enjoyable and exciting however I disagree with the re-writing of this classic just to make it into a more compelling tale.
AD
