Pride & Prejudice
Jul. 6th, 2006 02:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
woodfaceI finally saw the movie version and I have some thoughts.
I was trying to remain positive about this movie because I adore Matthew MacFayden, but one man can not carry a whole movie when he has no one to act against. This fell completely short. The movie suffered heaps by trying to be different from the series and there just is so much missing when you only have 2 hours. I actually semi-liked Keira Knightley for once which says a lot about the rest of the casting.
Frankly, the casting sucked. Mr Bennet was a pure disappointment and I had no love at all for the character. Mr Colin seemed to be trying very hard to do his own thing and thus doesn't come off the screen at all. I kept thinking Mr Bingley was one of the Weasleys for some reason and he looked way too young. It's really hard not to outright compare the movie and series, esp on this field as the series had an awesome cast.
What bugged me was that sometimes I managed to forget about the comparing and did go along with the movie (or thought that I wanted to go along with it), but then failed because the story telling fell flat and most of the acting was just plain bad. Mostly, it felt wrong to take Austen and force it into a Romantic interpretation. It's Austen for crying out loud, not Brontë.
And what the fuck is up with the American version getting a kiss at the end and the European not? What's wrong with you people?
In conclusion, Matthew McFayden is cute and can I have one please?
I was trying to remain positive about this movie because I adore Matthew MacFayden, but one man can not carry a whole movie when he has no one to act against. This fell completely short. The movie suffered heaps by trying to be different from the series and there just is so much missing when you only have 2 hours. I actually semi-liked Keira Knightley for once which says a lot about the rest of the casting.
Frankly, the casting sucked. Mr Bennet was a pure disappointment and I had no love at all for the character. Mr Colin seemed to be trying very hard to do his own thing and thus doesn't come off the screen at all. I kept thinking Mr Bingley was one of the Weasleys for some reason and he looked way too young. It's really hard not to outright compare the movie and series, esp on this field as the series had an awesome cast.
What bugged me was that sometimes I managed to forget about the comparing and did go along with the movie (or thought that I wanted to go along with it), but then failed because the story telling fell flat and most of the acting was just plain bad. Mostly, it felt wrong to take Austen and force it into a Romantic interpretation. It's Austen for crying out loud, not Brontë.
And what the fuck is up with the American version getting a kiss at the end and the European not? What's wrong with you people?
In conclusion, Matthew McFayden is cute and can I have one please?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-06 01:13 am (UTC)And for Matthew McFayden.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-06 01:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-06 01:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-06 02:01 am (UTC)I really have no coherent response to give here, because he made the movie for me. And I'm a sucker for romance :P
no subject
Date: 2006-07-06 10:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-10 05:48 pm (UTC)I kept thinking Mr Bingley was one of the Weasleys
*dies laughing* That's so true! That's probably why I liked him most of all out of this movie. Matt McF was good, but I hate Austen interpretations where Darcy comes off bored or depressed. (I tried really hard not to compare him to Colin Firth! I really did! ;-p) And Bingley is NOT an idiot, movie-making people. Get it straight. But oddly enough, I loved him anyway, and I loved the Bingley/Jane relaitonship as much as I did with the series.
I hated the American ending. *shields self from stuff being thrown at her* I thought it was really cheesy, and Lizzy telling Darcy to call her a Goddess made me cringe. A post-wedding scene, is great, yeah, but it would have been nice to see them actually talking, like they do after they get engaged in the book.
All in all, it seemed like "Austen 101" for teenagers with short attention spans. Cute, but not satisfying.
(But OMG, your icon is soooo prettttty...)