The Adventures of Huck Finn

Whenever a book is adapted into a movie, there are sacrifices and interpretations that must be made because the totality of the written work cannot possibly be translated to the screen. These choices can become exceptionally difficult when the work is one as widely-read and well-beloved as Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. For this latest filmed version, Stephen Sommers' script is faithful in spirit -- if not in all the details -- to the original. Much of Twain's keen insight into human nature, as well as his finely-tuned sense-of-humor, is kept intact in Disney's 1993 The Adventures of Huck Finn. It should be noted, however, that significant chunks of the novel are missing, including the bulk of the ending, and the character of Tom Sawyer doesn't make an appearance. While it's easy to debate the merits of what was cut, the final result manages to convey a good sense of the book's scope.

I have read the popular novel "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain and I found it to be an instant classic and a book definitely worth my time. When it comes to movie adaptations, I've seen very few. The 1993 version titled "The Adventures of Huck Finn" stars a young Elijah Wood as Huckleberry and Courtney B. Vance as Jim and also featured in the cast are some other well-known faces such as Ron Perlman, Jason Robards, Robbie Coltrane, and James Gammon. Overall, with this star-laden cast, the movie is quite entertaining in its own way. Like other films I can think of, it's beginning made little sense and happened a little too suddenly with no room for proper pacing or development. But once this had gone by, I did find myself enjoying the movie quite a bit.

Wood was, and still is a fine young actor and his performance as Huckleberry was noteworthy. I did like Courney B. Vance's performance as Jim and I think he rendered and portrayed the character with absolute perfection. After him, I did like Jason Robards and Robbie Coltrane as the bumbling con artists who call themselves the king and the duke. Ron Perlman was also a good choice to play Huckleberry's deranged father, unfortunately he wasn't given enough screen time to show his quintessential talents for the role and he wasn't quite involved in the story enough as he was in the book.

One thing that did disappoint me was that the screenwriters wrote out the character of Tom Sawyer, probably due to concern of containing too many characters for a 108-minute film. So I can understand the filmmakers' decision and accept it. Maybe the inclusion would have slowed the movie down, maybe not. But all and all, I did very much enjoy "The Adventures of Huck Finn" and although it is not a perfect adaptation of Mark Twain's excellent book, I still enjoyed it.

Say what you will about Mark Twain, but the story of Huckleberry Finn and Jim was truly his best. Forget Tom Sawyer and his fence - the tale of a mischievous child from an abusive home escaping with a runaway slave capable of enlightening said-child's perspectives on freedom gets my vote. At the height of the popularity of Bart Simpson, Disney released another adaptation of the classic starring a new up-and-coming child actor named Elijah Wood as Huck and a Yale graduate named Courtney B. Vance as Jim. But wait! The stars just keep on coming; Back-to-back Oscar-winner Jason Robards as the King, pre-Harry Potterized Robbie Coltrane as the Duke, Ron "Hellboy" Perlman (I could've sworn it was Tom Waits!) as Huck's drunk pappy, and Anne Heche (still hiding her cuckoo) as Mary Jane Wilks. There are also cameos by "Six Feet Under's" Frances Conroy, Curtis "Booger" Armstrong, and Pete's younger brother Pete Danny Tamberelli. There are quite a few dark moments for this PG-rated film, but maybe that's a big part of why I support it; Huck's gun-wielding confrontation with his father happens to be my favorite scene, though it's certainly not the darkest (That would be Billy's big scene.). The end of the movie is quite different from the end of the book - of course, they took the happily-ever-after approach - which sucks and ultimately makes a film filled with beautiful scenery and an unbelievably terrific score by Bill Conti seem like just another piece of Disnefluff. I know a bad ending can slay an entire movie, but one can't deny there's some good stuff in this one.

This film, "The Adventures of Huck Finn," comes from the novel with the same name. It stars Elijah Wood as Huck, and Courtney B. Vance as Jim. Whether it's on a raft or in town running from trouble, there is always adventure happening in this movie.

Huck was a boy in the 40's who ran away. He meets Jim (a runaway slave) and goes down the Mississippi River with him. Along the way, they run into the King & Duke. They change the direction of the story, but leads Huck to realize right from wrong. He's faced with a moral dilemma between what is seen as right and what is truly right.

Elijah Wood was a great role for Huck. Or rather, vice versa. He was very good at mimicking us Missourian's, for that is just how everyone sounds here. Joking aside, he captured the character similar to what I would have imagined. He could have done his accent better, that the only criticism I have.

The King and Duke weren't very believable characters. They both seemed overly dramatic in every scene they appeared in. Always getting clearly scared trying to hold a poker face. Words cannot explain the awful things I saw from them.

That being said, it wasn't a horrible movie, I suppose. I would give the movie 3 out of 5 stars. It was good, not great.

The Adventures of Huck Finn This is another adaptation of Mark Twain's timeless classic "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". This movie was created in 1993 and the setting is at a stretch the Mississippi river. Mark twain picked that setting because he lived in Missouri which are close by each other. It was easy for him to show the region as a whole from their dialect to how they dressed. This all played a big part in making it such a good story because of how it was realistic to the time period and the even the setting. Huckleberry Finn (Elijah Wood) is about a young boy who tries to do the right thing when most people didn't agree. He frees a slave named Jim Courtney B Vance. Huck has a lot of conflict with society and himself and just conflicts within himself. Such as when they are trying to follow through with Jim's plan to free himself and his family. Huck tries to "ask for directions" and instead of turning him in as Huck originally planned he thinks about Jim and how he really just wants to be with his family. This was hard for him to relate to because he is a son of a drunk Pap Finn (Ron Pearlman) who tries to kidnap his son and actually almost kills him while in a drunken rage. Huck seems to run into a lot of people who aren't really good influences throughout the whole movie such as the con men they meet in a town. The con men blackmail Huck and Jim by finding out about the wanted posters for Jim. They end up joining a con on a family to try to get money they would have inherited from a death but Huck foils it for them in the end. The story has many twists and turns and always keeps you guessing. Also with the realism that is portrayed in this movie such as Huck being a young abolitionist and the regional color in it just adds to the realistic feeling of it all. One of the most important things about a adult book that is turned into a children's film in the film making process is portraying the book without taking out a lot of the book. I think they did an okay job in changing it into a film. Some of the biggest problems was it took out a lot of characters that explain why Huck did some of the things he did like in the book I know Tom Sawyer influences him a great deal but yet they didn't mention Tom Sawyer once throughout the whole film which I think took away a lot for people who read "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". Aside from some characters missing and important parts they did take out little things from the book to make it appropriate for children by taking out some of the vulgar and dirty language. You could see a lot of points the story was making especially doing the right thing isn't always what everyone else thinks is right. Realism is the writing style that was used when this book was written and I think was really shown in the film too. They showed the regional color extremely well with their dialect and particularly in the movie their clothes. Mark Twain showed color so well because he lived there, his dialect and the way people acted towards things like slavery. Throughout the book it had events that were with the time period like slavery and how there were abolitionists. Even it showed how the slaves were treated poorly by most and even got separated from their families. He even shows how great of a difference it was between people who supported slavery and the few that were against it. The movie doesn't show as much realism because it's censored for children so you lose some of the effect. Last but not least I rate this movie 3 stars for people who haven't read the book and 1 star for people who have. The difference between the ratings is because if you have read the book you will be missing so much of the story that you hate it and the way you imagined the characters could be portrayed differently in the movie. This movie wasn't a bad movie to me I liked it a little at times I felt confused because I haven't read the book but overall the movie had a good story. The theme of the story adds to the movie greatly and really makes you feel sorry for slaves and you realize that some people just didn't know any better. I think the censorship took away from the movie a little and it would have been better if it was created in to an adult movie.