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As with any film which follows a beloved mini-series it is nearly impossible to escape the shadow. When watching this film you'll find yourself constantly comparing it to the mini-series and more often than not the memory of the mini-series comes out ahead.

That being said, I still very much enjoyed the film. As with other recent English remakes (Pride & Prejudice, BBC's Sense & Sensibility) you really appreciate the beauty of modern film making. The cinematography, the score, and the ever beautiful Castle Howard, Venice, and Oxford alone are worth the watching in my opinion. There are also some great performances. Matthew Goode's Charles rivals that of Jeremy Iron's, Hayley Atwell's Julia (in a more central role than that of the mini-series) was also quite good. I also found myself rather enjoying Charles' wife Celia (Anna Madeley) even in such a small role.

The real failure of the film seems to be the difficulty with compressing 11 hours into 2. Everything is forced to move faster and the more quite, gentle, and simple scenes are lost. What's left then is a distillation of the most dramatic moments. As a result the film loses the subtlety of the mini-series. The religious bits are played up a bit too much and makes the characters slightly unbelievable. Emma Thompson is great as always, but her character of Lady Marchmain as written is too over bearing, too controlling, too inhuman. The character of Sebastian is louder than in the mini-series and becomes jaded before you care much for him. Indeed, I didn't find myself caring particularly much for any of the characters except perhaps Charles.

Still, if you don't have 11 hours on hand to spend watching the mini-series, this is a suitable substitute and is worth watching at least once at any rate. As long as you don't go in expecting an equal to the mini-series you'll enjoy it and may even find a moment or two which improves upon the original.

I haven't read Evelyn Waugh's famous 1945 novel or seen Granada's acclaimed 1981 television adaptation. so I approached the story fresh, as indeed will most viewers of this quintessentially England tale of the repressive nature of religion and class. I understand that the adaptation by Andrew Davies and Jeremy Brock has taken some liberties with the original, more subtle narrative, but this is inevitable in a work of just 133 minutes compared to the 11 episodes of the television series.

Directed by the English Julian Jarrold who made "Becoming Jane", the film has many strengths. There are wonderful locations in Oxford, Venice, Morocco and above all Castle Howard in North Yorkshire standing in - as in the television version - as the eponymous country house that is almost a character in itself. The script contains some fine lines - often very cutting and very cruel. Above all, there is some accomplished acting, both from veterans Michael Gambon and Emma Thompson as Lord and Lady Marchmain and newcomers Ben Whishaw and Hayley Attwell as their son Sebastian and daughter Julia and Matthew Goode as Charles Ryder, a young artist who falls in love in different ways with both Sebastian and Julia as well as their home and style.

Sadly, however, ultimately the whole film seems somewhat pedestrian and leaves one feeling strangely cold and disconnected.

Is this film a worthy interpretation of "Brideshead Revisited"? Well, up to a point, Lord Copper, as another one of Evelyn Waugh's characters was wont to say.

First, scriptwriter Andrew Davies, a past master of adaptation of great and not-so great literary works, has put the focus on the Charles and Julia love story rather than the Charles and Sebastian 'romantic friendship' as Cara, Lord Marchmain's Italian mistress puts it. The religious aspect is dealt with almost incidentally.

Second, Lady Marchmain, as played by Emma Thompson, is a very grim person with total emotional control over her children and whose particular Christian beliefs means that she is indifferent to their suffering as to her this life is a mere precursor to the glorious afterlife – the same attitude as a 9/11 hi-jacker in fact. She has none of the sweetness that Claire Bloom brought to the 1981 TV series.

Third, some of the performances owe a good deal to those in the TV series, especially Matthew Goode as Charles who has an uncanny likeness to Jeremy Irons. And of course Castle Howard reprises its role as Brideshead. Some characters were reduced to ciphers; for example Bridey who played by Simon Jones stole several scenes in 1981 but the part is reduced to a non-entity here. Michael Gambon, a consummate actor, gives us a new take on Lord Marchmain to compare with Lawrence Olivier's earlier version.

Overall, though, I was left with the impression this film has not much to say which is new. Like the recent feature film version of "Pride and Prejudice", it gives a broad outline of the story but misses out much of the rich context provided by the minor characters. Oh, read the book instead.

I have never read the book or seen the miniseries, so my experience wasn't clouded by already existing expectations and assumptions of the characters. Instead I was awaiting a first, and therefore unbiased look into the world of Brideshead.

As a film, it is okay bordering on good and solid. The performances are strong enough to keep the audience interested, but they do not keep us enthralled. The leads are savvy and sexy in their own rights, but they lack true appeal as performers. They can come off as rather dull in certain scenes, but in others they pull out a subtle presence that is called for in intimate, or more emotion scenes. This inconsistence was bothersome and hindered the overall telling of the story. The one presence that is felt, but is far too short is that of Emma Thompson. As the matriarchal head of the family, she is brutal and works well with the one dimensional writing she was given. If they had focused more on her, we would have been able to understand the tortured minds of Julia and Sebastian better. Instead they have Julia and Sebastian describe her to the audience, which keeps us from getting close enough to realize what deformed her mind to begin with.

Charles is, at times to weak and unsure to be accepted as someone we want to see happy. We end up being unsure of his character's intention, and not in a mysterious, purposeful way, but in a, "the film-making is too unclear" way. Is Charles just a social climber whose dreams are dashed by his wants and Atheist ways? Or is he a moral soul lost in the pull of Brideshead's condemning Catholic trappings? This is the major flaw to the film, Charles is never exposed.

Small framing problems and out-of-style shots hampered the visual appeal, but with that aside, the visuals are very lush and the score complements some well placed montages to give the viewer a true sense of the desired never-ending summer Charles and Sebastian so desperately dream after.

If you like British tales of class and religion, or period films, this one is not a letdown. It is nothing new, but nothing terrible either. I recommend it if this is your sort of thing, I was not disappointed, but I wasn't blown away.

The greatness of the original Brideshead Revisited was in the luxury of being able to transpose a very complicated emotional and intellectual book into words. It succeeded in this, but only just, due to superb direction, photography and script which, even in its sparseness, only just allowed the successful transition to film. The problem with anything shorter is that, if it took Mortimer so many episodes to get it right, then there are very few writers who could even get near in under 4 hours, if that. So lets stop beating about the bush. This is a sound reproduction of the calender plot but after that it is not Brideshead Revisited. Call it by another name and I will laud it. It brings in a strong homosexual element and a early sexual attraction between Charles Ryder and Miss Flyte. With that everything becomes unbalanced. Motivations change. The beauty of the original is that it hinted at ????something (a je ne sais quoi) and it was that and the ever strengthening Catholic awareness of family that made this film so fascinating. The original's masterpiece was the script supported by the cine photography. That has been lost. But taken as is, a pretty and interesting film which seems to be loosely based on an early fifties work by Waugh.