vgs1895

If you've read all the other reviews, you know what the story line is so I won't go into that.

What I will say is that the production and writing of the movie itself were excellent--I didn't realize CourtTV made such high quality productions. The family dialog seemed genuine---no sugar coating to make an idyllic family, and they seemed like 'regular' people. The actors were excellent--I was pleasantly surprised. I expected as much out of Ally Sheedy, but the boy who played Michael deserves all the kudos he has been earning. The supporting characters were also very good.

This movie should be viewed by aspiring law students and probably anyone who is interested in personal freedom!

I love Jane Eyre and have seen all of the English-speaking versions of it, I think.

So, we watched the 2011 one. It got excellent reviews here except for a few who felt the way I did. These are my opinions, and I totally respect the opinions of those who loved this version.

Pros:

--Jane looked good. Very plain.

--Scenery was good.

--Many of the lines were directly from the book.

--Adele is played by a petite young girl (as opposed to the Ciaran Hinds version where Adele is almost taller than Jane).

Cons:

--Boring. It was my husband's first exposure to Jane Eyre, and probably his last. He was bored, and he usually likes British stuff, even Jane Austin or Bronte. He won't watch that genre more than one time, but at least he'll watch it that one time. In this case, he had a problem keeping up with this particular movie. (See my next comment.)

--In the beginning, they go back and forth between her childhood and present day. For him, that was confusing--and it would have been for me as well if I didn't know the story backwards and forwards.

--Rochester isn't "ugly" enough (Ciaran Hinds was perfect for it, Timothy Dalton wasn't -- even though his version is one of my favorites). That's not a major issue, but I don't think he was suitable for this movie. (I love Ciaran Hinds' looks, by the way, so I'm not knocking him!)

--Not good character development. I don't know how it's possible, but they really didn't develop the characters well. We didn't know or care about St. John or his sisters. The most 'thorough' J.E. is the Timothy Dalton one, and it's very long. But even the shorter ones still are able to develop characters. This one didn't. I found it almost a chore to watch. I didn't care all about Rochester and Jane.

--They didn't include some key lines between Rochester and Jane which would have really helped show that Jane was strong.

Ironically, I watched the deleted scenes, and probably half of them would have made the movie better.

I actually rented this movie years and years ago thinking it might be good. Wrong! The acting, direction, plot, story, dialog, cinematography, etc. etc. were horrible. From then on it went down. I'm trying to remember some of the plot so as to give a summary, but there's not much worth remembering. The "crippled" boy doesn't always remember which leg is crippled, and it's pretty evident that the actors don't remember the plot (if it really had one).

The only redeeming part of this movie is that it's so bad it's laughable, which is why I rated it a "2" instead of a "1." I'm surprised Mystery Science Theater didn't find it.

Only waste your money on it as a joke. I actually did hunt it down to buy as a joke for my husband. We tried to watch it again, but failed.