RLove

I had heard a lot of good things about Howards End and I love Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins was great, (as was the rest of the cast) but the movie wasn't. There wasn't anything of real depth in the movie. The lives of the three families interwove and demonstrated contrast between passion and coldness and their application to class, but it was all surface clamoring. Ultimately, Howards End rings hollow. The vast number of links between the characters are far from plausible and would give even Charles Dickens pause. The social commentary comes from these links and juxtapositions provided by the plot. While it's obviously an element, the film never seems to be driving toward it. Criticism seems to come as a merely byproduct of the rambling story, and just didn't work for me. It was too obvious and felt ham-handed.

I know I'm in the minority here, but this one is nothing special. The acting is superb, but for a film that deals with class conflict better, watch Gosford Park. 4/10

I'd been meaning to read the book for years, and I made sure to actually do it prior to viewing the film. I was impressed...there is an absolute wealth of story in the book, and no movie could even come close to including it all, but the feel of the book was there. The first 20 minutes of the movie seemed pretty rushed, but it successfully drew me in. The characters had come to life.

However, it's far from a perfect movie. On my second and third viewings the poor dialogue started to show up in some places. And it's really, really bad. In particular, there's Aragorn speaking to Legolas and Gimli..."Let's hunt some orc." That has to be one of the most horrendous lines I've ever heard.

Still, the film is beautiful to look at, wonderfully directed, and a better adaptation of the book than I would have thought humanly possible. It doubtlessly doesn't deserve the #4 rating on IMDB, but it's still an excellent movie. Numerous people will hate this movie, but most will be swept into Tolkein's beautiful and epic fantasy world. 7/10