duncanja

This series, for all that is good about it, has to be a major disappointment to fans of the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee novels it's taken from. The actors are good, the locations are authentic and beautifully photographed, the dedication to casting Native Americans is admirable . . . But the spirit and essence of Tony Hillerman's books are sadly missing. Even worse, the central characters have been warped to suit the screenwriters, and are not true to their originals.

The casual viewer unacquainted with his work will probably like the series-it's gritty and well-acted, with plenty of action. Moving the period to the 1960s creates some plot opportunities. Though it's true that neither Joe nor Emma Leaphorn appear in the original People of Darkness (series 2) and Jim Chee is not part of Listening Woman (series 1), it's not a bad idea to put all the chief characters together for a film series-provided that it's done with the proper skill and care.

But there is so much distortion of the source material that, midway through the 2nd series, I just couldn't stand to watch the show any more. Instead of the enchanting Navajo world that Hillerman portrayed we get an oppressively brooding and threatening (if beautiful) landscape. The mood is unrelentingly grim, with characters continually barking and snarling at each other. In Hillerman's work there is plenty of humor to balance the violence and menace, but there's none to speak of in this series. That robs Navajoland of an important dimension.

Methodical, skeptical, slyly ironic Joe Leaphorn has been replaced by a type of embittered, surly, revenge-seeking character we've seen plenty of times in other crime dramas. And he is decidedly un-Navajo in his behavior and outlook. This is a shame, because Zahn McClarnon has what it takes for the part.

The role of Leaphorn's wife Emma has been expanded, which works well-especially as played by the vibrant Deanna Allison. Unfortunately the writers not only shoehorned these characters into the storyline, but also imposed a spurious backstory about a deceased son which they've made into the key event that controls everything else. Thus the bitterness that the writers decided to make a central trait of their Leaphorn invades even the couple's scenes together.

Jim Chee, the aspiring Navajo shaman who chooses his native culture over a career with the FBI, has been replaced by a fairly shallow FBI dropout who knows very little of his Navajo heritage. Like McClarnon, Kiowa Gordon could undoubtedly portray the real Jim Chee, but in this series he comes across more like an out-of-work Bollywood star who's wandered onto the wrong set. In People of Darkness he's been completely upstaged by the sourpuss Leaphorn.

Chee's spiritual guide is his uncle, a Navajo sage called Frank Sam Nakai. The creators of this series have seen fit to take that name and arbitrarily assign it to a member of the murderous gang that robs the bank shipment in the first series.

Chee's Anglo girlfriend of People of Darkness, the schoolteacher Mary Landon, appears in the second series as a well-meaning reporter from Los Angeles who has little to do with him. It's another random recycling of a Hillerman name.

But the real Mary Landon plays an important role in People of Darkness. As Chee schools her in the Navajo way, we naturally learn along with her. And she poses an important question: "But you can't be both a Navajo medicine man and an FBI agent?" That makes Chee think to himself, "As a matter of fact, you couldn't be both a Navajo and an FBI agent. You couldn't be a Navajo away from the People." The conflict between Chee's professional ambition and his strong connection to his Navajo heritage is part of the essence of his character. It's unthinkable that he would join the FBI, much less deceive Leaphorn about his true identity, which the writers have him do.

The icy blonde assassin of People of Darkness is well played by Nicholas Logan, but his role has been expanded and distorted to suit the writers' aims. I got fed up after sitting through a pointless sequence in which he and Leaphorn slog across a stretch of badlands trading blows and barbs like James Stewart and Robert Ryan in The Naked Spur or Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune in Hell in the Pacific. At this point I realized that the series creators had decided their stale ideas were better than those of the originator, Tony Hillerman-and so I gave up on it.

It's not that I expect a literal and too-reverent translation of the source material, although a little respect for someone's creation would be nice.. Yes, filmmakers always have to make changes to suit the medium. But the crude cut-and-paste approach these hacks took to Hillerman's incomparable Navajo mysteries are simply not worthy of their source. How Robert Redford and Anne Hillerman could attach their names to this production is beyond me.

For me, this live action Tintin yarn from 1960 is an amiable antidote to the supercharged Steven Spielberg-Peter Jackson animated epic of 2011. My stepson and I read all the Tintin comics of Hergé and enjoyed them hugely, but we didn't find Spielberg's film much fun at all (and we're Spielberg fans for the most part). The unrelenting, frenetic action and spectacular animation was for us more exhausting than entertaining.

But this movie really captures the atmosphere of the comic books. There's Captain Haddock's cartoon beard, Tintin's cowlick and insouciant ultra-competence (mirrored by his delightful dog Milou/Snowy), the choreographed idiocy of the Thompson twins, Professor Cuthbert Calculus with his long goatee, green outfit and daffy inventions, crayola-bright color schemes that reflect Hergé's comic book panels, a hidden treasure with a mysterious backstory, a cast of dastardly villains-you name it!

As a bonus, this movie was shot entirely on location in Turkey and Greece, with street scenes that effortlessly incorporate landmarks like the Hagia Sofia and the Parthenon, plus seemingly casual passers-by who lend a nice flavor of verisimilitude to the proceedings. There's even a sort of musical interlude in a Greek village with an excellent folk ensemble providing the entertainment.

Story, direction and acting are just fine, especially Georges Wilson as the blustering Captain Haddock and mild-mannered Jean-Pierre Talbot as the "reporter" Tintin.

A masterpiece?-well, no. A lot of fun?-You bet!

This movie is proof that greater faithfulness (though still partial) to your source material is no guarantee of a successful film. In the 1930s, James Whale and his colleagues made two great ones taking what they pleased from Mary Shelley and inventing the rest. This version succeeds only with the monster itself, and its striking to see that the otherwise frantic pace of this film slows down and becomes most coherent when the monster takes center stage. Much credit goes to Robert De Niro for a nuanced and empathetic performance that almost, but not quite, redeems this adaptation. The sequence in which he secretly helps an impoverished farm family and befriends their blind grandfather is most effective and comes straight from Mary Shelley's remarkable work (it's also the clear inspiration for the blind hermit sequence in Whale's Bride of Frankenstein, hilariously sent up in Young Frankenstein).

The rest of the movie is often incoherent and overwrought. Despite some impressive moments, it never matches the stately motion or design of the old Universal horror creations. But De Niro is great because, like Boris Karloff before him, he uses his actor's intuition to find the heart of the monster, and he never overplays the part. He makes this fkawed adaptation worth seeing.