Michael's Movie Grade: D
Review: Though this movie has its charms, they are sadly greatly overshadowed by the film's faults.
This movie's faults sadly are much too bad to overlook. The main problem with this movie is the characters. They are simply bland and boring. They feel too much at service to the plot and the plot not enough at service to them. They seem to exist simply to tell the story that we are seeing and nowhere in this film can we picture them as real people. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if this movie wasn't a tearjerker, but it is and simply doesn't produce tears because in the end we have little to no idea who these people actually are. Another problem is that we have a couple of side plots that are not interesting at all and simply make the movie longer without adding any substance. There is also the problem that this movie often times becomes too reliant on contrivance. If a characters had not been in a certain places at a certain times this movie would be a much shorter one. However they see things the interrupt as other things and hear things at exactly the wrong moment. While this sort of thing can work at times, here it does not because there is little feeling behind it and therefore this makes much of the plot seem forced.
This movie does have some good things about it though. The sets and costumes look lovely, and the cinematography looks excellent. As well as this Danny Elman's musical score is quite good. However again, the faults in this movie overshadow these good things and it winds up as a poor movie.
-Michael J. Ruhland.
