Casanova

David Tennant plays the young Casanova so cheeky yet appealing , charming , hilarious and unique. Peter O'Toole plays the old Casanova and his performance is undoubtedly outstanding . The scenary, costumes and colours along with the acting , directing and witty script makes me take my hat off . This mini series will put a smile on your face and it's a must watch . Thank you so much Russell T Davies's for such a piece of magnificent work !

This is the second Casanova movie to come out in 2005. It's hard to say which one is better, because although they have the same main character, the approach is very different.

Here, Casanova is portrayed as a man constantly in love. A hopeless romantic, one could say. The evolution of the character is handled beautifully: in the beginning of the movie he's just a young boy, trying to find himself, developing slowly into a confident man, to the end, when he's a bitter old man, who stopped dreaming.

The direction is certainly memorable, shocking in some places, but the true asset of this movie is David Tennant. He's a spectacular actor, and (being an avid Doctor Who fan) I expected to watch this movie and say: "Look, there's the Doctor.", but he just detached himself from any previous role and he just was Casanova. I really ended up loving this movie because of his beautiful portrayal.

There's of course Peter O'Toole who was just as brilliant, in portraying old Casanova. Also, this is the first movie I've seen with two actors playing the same part -young and old- in which I could see the same character. Sure, O'Toole's Casanova is bitter and old, but you can see Tennant's Casanova developing into that person.

It's a movie definitely worth seeing. If you can't find the DVD, maybe you'll be lucky and catch it on BBC.

After watching bits of "Queer As Folk", a season of the new "Doctor Who", the "Doctor Who" Christmas special (also listening to the accompanying commentary) and the three parts of "Casanova", I think I've figured out what it is that frustrates me about Russell T. Davies's writing: its inconsistency. If it was merely mediocre, I'd simply dismiss it as such--but it's not.

His stories do have characters, scenes, and story arcs that are absolutely wonderful; his attention to detail can be minute; his dialogue can be scintillating in its irreverence and vivacity and his plot development can display astonishing originality. But these moments of brilliance are offset by under-developed secondary characters, unconvincing gaps in the plot, frankly ridiculous surprise twists, huge leaps of logic, jarringly crass jokes, lines intended merely to shock and unexplained dialogue non sequiturs. When I watch his work, I find my reactions alternating between, "Wow, this is great!" and "WTF?"

As for "Casanova" specifically: on balance, I love it. It's funny, engaging, exciting, romantic, sexy, and devastatingly sad at the end. It portrays a compellingly sympathetic Casanova and makes me curious about the real historic figure. While I personally already enjoy a lot of "costume dramas", I applaud this production's efforts to bring a younger and hipper audience to the genre. The acting is fine across the board and the leads (David Tennant and Peter O'Toole especially) are excellent. The innovative direction is effective. Since I knew beforehand not to expect historical accuracy, most of the anachronisms didn't bother me.

My chief complaint aside from the Russell T. Davies stuff mentioned above is probably with the music, the quality of which, like the writing, varied widely in my opinion. Some of it was fantastic, to be sure, but a significant amount was irritating and intrusive. And, call it a personal pet peeve if you will, but I really really dislike the sound of synthesized strings and brass. If it's a choice between what are obviously synthesizers and minimal or no instrumental accompaniment, I almost always prefer the latter.

I turned on PBS last night and ran into this movie completely by accident. I was hooked immediately. It is so funny and unusual. The fact that everything happens to the young Casanova by chance is one of the things that makes it good. He is goofy, low-born, and self-effacing, as opposed to Heath Ledger's smug, overly confident Casanova in the film recently in theaters (which I found very boring.) This CASANOVA is definitely worth my time and yours. The supporting characters are enjoyable and the sets and costumes are amazing, full of color and authenticity. It was a spectacle for the ears and the eyes, I especially liked the colorfest during Casanova and Bellino's ball. Enjoy!

Russell T Davies and the enthusiastic cast has given this a real feeling of life and excitement using the exterior shots in Venice to their best advantage. David Tennant is brilliantly engaging, funny and attractive playing the 'lad about town' with such confidence and swagger and a touch of vulnerability that it's not difficult to understand why he attracted all his conquests. Casting O'Toole was inspired and at one point with both he and Tennant on screen I was struck by how well they seemed to 'match up' in a way that Ewan Magregor and Alec Guiness (for example) could not. Laura Fraser who I always thought was overlooked in "Knight's Tale" is perfect as the elusive Henriette. I'm looking forward to the rest