I saw a preview. This is one of the most mawkishly unwatchable films I've ever seen. The characters are flat stereotypes, and every line and story element is a cheap cliché. Every plot point is telegraphed in advance, and then plays out at an agonizingly slow pace, accompanied by manipulative music. I couldn't take it seriously or care about the characters.
I haven't read the book, so can't comment on whether the rendition is faithful.
Well, no books for you!
Just thinking out loud...
Sounds like you're in the minority but thanks for the counter point. When you say you saw a preview I assume you mean a showing of the entire film and not a trailer?
shareYeah, I mean a real honest-to-goodness giant-screen full screening, for insiders and bigwigs and their lackeys and flunkies and groupies. The person I was with shared my opinion, which seemed to me the only opinion one could form; however I'm aware that others felt differently. Ah, well, there's no accounting for taste. I see the Metacritic overview covers the gamut.
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-book-thief/critic-reviews
Thank goodness someone else had the nerve to say it.
I saw a sold-out sneak preview of this film at a major film fest a few weeks ago (1,100 people in a massive theater with a balcony), and I could not believe what I was watching.
I have been telling everyone who asks exactly what I thought of the film and they all star at me in disbelief.
This is straight-up one of the most insultingly atrocious wastes of talent and money I have ever witnessed.
Almost disgusting in its assumption that viewers are easily manipulated idiots, I can't even begin to get into the myriad of ways this movie is a crass, shallow and thoroughly unbelievable piece of *beep*
I stayed till the end because I don't believe in walking out of movies, and feel they should be seen in their entirety to be judged accurately.
However, I could not believe the thunderous applause the movie received when the credits (FINALLY!) rolled, after several fake-out, fade to black endings that were already long overdue.
A sloppy, stunningly simplistic and laughably inane view of WWII that everyone around me (including avowed curmudgeons and the terminally contrary) all claimed to either like a lot or outright love (I felt like I was at the Nazi version of an Amway meeting), it is ripe for midnight screenings a la ROCKY HORROR, with folks shouting out witty ripostes to the insufferable dialog and ludicrous staging.
One of the worst films I have ever seen.
SERIOUSLY.
- L.F.
Saw it tonight. Like it a lot. After considering everything you both have said, I gotta say, I totally disagree.
shareIt was the best movie I've seen in years. I think the OP stepped into Anchorman 2 by mistake and didn't realize it.
shareActually the Book Thief and Anchorman (1--after that you couldn't pay me to watch 2) are in my top 10 list of most annoying movies I have seen.
Book Thief had every possible cliche--(Rudy dying as he says "I love y..."--if that's not ham-fisted schmaltz then I don't know what is), and every film narration trick terribly done--the death narrator, the montage of reading book passages, and on and on. The German accents were distracting--and if you are going to do it in English then why have the background dialog in German--it was so inconsistent. And the John Williams score was pure Hallmark saccharin. Just dreadful. Inside Llewyn Davis, however, now there's a great film.
This film is so awful. It is hammy, corny, melodramatic, contrived and pathetic. How can people fall for this idiotic garbage? The anchorman films were INTENTIONALLY FUNNY, this film was unintentionally hilarious.
(Rudy dying as he says "I love y..."--if that's not ham-fisted schmaltz then I don't know what is)YES!, awful, it was like that scene in Team America where Carson is like "you need to find somebody to love you", yet in that film they were mocking corny crap, in this film they expect you to take it seriously. And some idiots have fallen for it!!!! 7.7? HAHAHAHA WHAT?
I would like if you could begin to get into the myriad of ways this movie is a crass, shallow and thoroughly unbelievable piece of *beep*
Thank you in advance.
I'm with you on this one. I actually thought the first half had some promise, then bit by bit it started to go off the rails. Ultimately they did nothing with it, the setup was all wasted in a 'non story' second half. What was the point to all this??? The actual ending was pure crap of awe inspiring magnitude.
If people think this was a great movie then IQs have dropped a lot in recent years.
It was almost as if they had a checklist of clichés and manipulations they had to check off before they were allowed to finish the film.
"if it was any good they'd have made an American version by now." Hank Hill
I agree with everything you said except for it unwatchable, it wasn't that bad. I did find it too difficult to actually care for or about the characters even with Williams' typical score trying to force me to.
"God, when I meet you, I'm gonna be pretty. If it's the last thing I do. I'll be a beautiful angel."
I think you've hit on a very important point. I too found myself not really caring what happened to the characters, there's not enough substance to them to really give a damn. I found myself distracted with minutia and visuals during scenes which were supposed to be sad or dramatic. The stereotypical clichéd ways the characters were portrayed made it almost impossible to identify with or empathize with them.
"if it was any good they'd have made an American version by now." Hank Hill
Spot on. I hate to be mean-minded, but it was a movie for people to pat themselves on the back to - people who love "magical film-making" and who "love books" (I can't understand how a basic human staple like reading has become such an internet badge of honour).
This was so manipulative it was painful. In case the cute children weren't enough, we had the syrupy score prodding and poking us toward tears. The cliches came thick and fast - eg, the kindly father winking at his adopted daughter while the "nasty" wife rants in the background (and didn't we know she'd turn out to be not so nasty?) Have any book lovers read Great Expectations? The "tense" cellar search, the local bully...on an on it went.
I just hate having my intelligence insulted, especially in a way that affects to flatter me.
Awight we're The Daamned we're a punk baand and this is called Carn't Be Appy T'day!
Just watched (half-watched) this on dvd. Have to agree that it really was not a very good movie and the characters were stereotypes and wooden. I wanted to like it but the best I could give it was 5 out of 10.
shareHah, I saw the trailer for this and could smell this pile of sap a mile away.
Glad I missed out.
Limit of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief: directly proportional to its awesomeness.