Short Water For Elephants review

Thought I'd just shae a little retort I made on my site about Water For Elephants. Must admit ( like most of the time ) it didn't live up to the book ( but I did like Rosie ! )...

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Short Water For Elephants review

I didn't dislike the film, but it didn't live up to the book by far. I really liked the novel. I connected with it. There were many scenes that felt disjointed and didn't flow in the movie version. And I felt they could have did more with the elder Jacob played by Hal Holbrook too. I will admit the production values on the film were top notch, especially production design and cinemastography by Jack Fisk and Rodrigo Prieto respectively.

I didn't like the idea of combining a few charatcers from the book into one in the movie. I don't see the need for that. It weakens the original story, because some of those other character's were interesting as their own entity.

I thought the acting was decent to good. I never thought I would say this, but I think Robert Pattinson performed more convincingly than his Oscar winning co-stars Reece Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz. I thought Reece did a good job, just nothing to brag about. And even though I really admire the talents of Waltz, a few times I had a flashback that he was doing his Oscar winning charatcer in Inglourious Bastards, Hans Landa. I sincerely hope that he doesn't get type cast as that kind of character, because I felt the same way that he sort of channeled Landa in The Green Hornet as well. He's a better actor than just playing the villian over and over.

Overall...I didn't hate the flick, but it didn't live up to the book in my opinion, which happens more times than not with adaptations. I give it a C+.