Video review: "Great Expectations"

I know, I know … you’re thinking to yourself, why should I care about the (seemingly) 3,074th version they’ve made of “Great Expectations” for film or television?

Short answer: because the new version that came out at the end of last year is one of the most emotionally engaging adaptations of a Charles Dickens’ novel I’ve ever seen.

You may not even be aware of this iteration, directed by Pete Newell (“Four Weddings and a Funeral”) and starring an impressive cast, including Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Jeremy Irvine, Robbie Coltrane and Holliday Grainger. It didn’t get much traction, barely making it into U.S. theaters.

But this may just be the best film of 2013 that nobody saw. Fiennes and Bonham Carter both deserved Oscar nominations for their fine, vibrant performances.

You know the story: a young penniless orphan (Irvine) is given an inheritance and an introduction into London society by an anonymous benefactor. He makes a mush of it, squandering his fortune and falling for a chilly, distant girl protected by her brittle ward, Miss Havisham (Bonham Carter).

Dickens himself felt that “Great Expectations” was his greatest work, but previous movie versions have tended to be stilted and unapproachable. Give this one a chance, and you won’t find yourself disappointed.

Extra features include deleted scenes, a making-of featurettes, photo gallery and more.

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Review: "Great Expectations"

Film adaptations of 19th century British and American literature have a tendency to be stiff and remote. The characters in those books were often more like archetypes than flesh-and-blood creatures. They spoke in lilted sentences adored in upper-class salons of the day, but which were unlikely to actually spill out of anyone’s mouth extemporaneously. Movie versions tend to translate this distance between author and audience.

At first I thought “Great Expectations” was falling into this fold, based on Charles Dickens’ classic tale of a blacksmith’s apprentice transformed into a young gentleman. The early section where we’re introduced to the main players and set the plot in motion drags rather badly. Pip is plucked out of obscurity and given a sizeable fortune by a mysterious benefactor.

But something happens along the way. The actors grow comfortable in their roles, director Mike Newell and screenwriter David Nicholls trim away some of the book’s extraneous subplots and characters, and the movie actually grows deeper and richer the further we travel along with it.

By the end, I was fully caught up in the emotional journey of Pip (Jeremy Irvine) and his long-estranged lady love, Estella (Holliday Grainger). Their on-again, off-again affair is somehow both restrained and ravishing.

The cast is just spectacular, with the characters really popping off the screen despite many of them having limited screen time. Jason Felmyng has sort of shy, proud grace as Joe, Pip’s brother-in-law and passive protector. Robbie Coltrone is a fearsome, fulsome presence as Jaggers, the mercenary lawyer put in charge of introducing Pip into society. Ewen Bremner, Sally Hawkins and Olly Alexander are spot-on as, respectively, Jaggers’ assistant Wemmick, Pip’s abusive older sister and best chum Herbert Pocket.

The real standouts are Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes, both of whom deserve consideration when the award season rolls in.

As Miss Havisham, the wealthy spinster who takes young Pip under her wing, Carter is an eerie presence, a victim and victimizer who has shut herself away from life. Abandoned at the altar by a conniving embezzler, she still wears her wedding dress, now reduced to ragged strips, while the mice make a feast on her never-served banquet dinner. She’s both vile and pitiable.

It’s no secret Fiennes can be utterly unnerving onscreen, so his early scenes as escaped convict Abel Magwitch are fraught with terror. Later, while never losing his hard edges -- he’s a willing murderer who sleeps with a blade in his hand -- Magwitch is also exposed as more human than we might have supposed.

Irvine is fine in the lead role, though it’s more of a reactive part where the actor is required to play off of the other, more interesting people around him. Grainger has a nice feel for the coldness inside the heart of Estella, Miss Havisham’s adoptive daughter.

She delivers perhaps the most memorable line of the book and movie: “I have been bent and broken, but -- I hope -- into a better shape.” This surprisingly touching version of “Great Expectations” certainly breaks the mold for this sort of literary adaptation, breathing life into those dusty pages.

Video review: "Brave"

Given the state of most entertainment geared towards kids these days -- take "Hotel Transylvania," please -- "Brave" stands head and shoulders above the rest. It's an energetic, engaging story of a Scottish princess who throws off the yoke of traditional expectations.

I especially give it points for having the girl not wait around for some derring-do dude come save her, but taking matters into her own able hands.

But the fact that it comes from the Pixar Animation studio means that, fairly or not, it's automatically held to a loftier standard. Put against gems like "Finding Nemo" or "Up" or "Wall·E," this movie has a tang of disappointment.

Merida (Kelly Macdonald) is the daughter of the king and queen (Billy Connolly and Emma Thompson), who have spent their whole lives preparing her to be married off to some prince for the good of the kingdom. But she'd rather shoot arrows and ride horses than play the maid-in-waiting.

The land has been plagued by a "demon bear" who ripped off the king's leg when Merida was a girl, and when she makes a rash choice involving a local enchantress, the curse is brought home in terrible ways.
Visually the film is a wonder, full of splashy colors and gorgeous details that just pop off the screen. The red of Merida's curly hair and the bear's bristly fur are sights to behold.

I still recommend "Brave." It's a well-crafted piece of family entertainment. It's just that on the tall totem pole of Pixar's animated legacy, it comes in at the bottom.

"Brave" comes only in a Blu-ray/DVD combo, either the standard 3-disc version or the 5-disc "Ultimate Collector's Edition" that includes a 3-D version of the film.

Both editions are nicely stocked with extras, including a pair of animated shorts and a host of making-of featurettes, extended and deleted scenes, director commentary, an alternate opening, art gallery, animation bloopers and more.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 3.5 stars

Review: "Brave"

There's a whole lot of craftsmanship but not so much magic in "Brave," Pixar Animation's first foray into the sword-and-sorcery genre. It's a stout tale well-told of Scottish royalty and magic curses and finding your own fate. But the movie held few surprises for me, and at times seemed almost to be going through the motions.

"Brave" is also a departure for Pixar in that it's their first film in 13 forays that features a female protagonist. That may not sound like a big deal, but consider how girl-centric the first decade or two of Disney animated movies were. It's strange that we talk about the brave new world of computer animation, but in some sense it's still catching up.

It has become de rigueur at this point to comment on how much the animation has advanced in recent years, but that's because the digital artists keep refining and deepening their craft. The vibrant colors of the Scottish landscape seem to burst right off the screen, and the textures are so lifelike you can practically feel the coarse bristles of a bear clambering out of a river, sparkling water running off its glistening fur in jewel-like rivulets.

(Things are not helped, though, by a 3-D rendering that leaves many scenes in the forest or inside the castle murky and muddled. My advice: skip the upsell on this one.)

Perhaps the most startling feature in the film, even though it's one we see in most every scene, is the fiery red hair of heroine Merida (voice by Kelly Macdonald), the strong-willed princess. Merida cares more about archery and adventure than playing the lady of the castle, and her hair is a wild tumble matching her roving spririt.

This does not go across so well with the queen (Emma Thompson), who seems to have spent her entire adult life preparing her daughter to be wed. Royal tradition is that the first-born sons of the three great clans vie for the glory of her hand. But Merida -- who could probably best any of her suitors in a contest -- thinks she should be able to follow her heart.

Billy Connolly is a hoot as King Fergus, who had his leg torn off by a ferocious battle with a "demon bear" back when Merida was a girl, and aches for another crack at him. Robbie Coltrane, Craig Ferguson and Kevin McKidd play the heads of the three clans, and Julie Walters is the proprietor of The Crafty Carver, a shop hidden in the woods specializing in carpentry and ... other trades.

I don't want to give too much away, other than to say Merida makes a rash decision that throws the entire kingdom into turmoil. It also forces herself to take a closer look at her fractured relationship with her mother.

This is a brave step, in that in animated films featuring feminine main characters the mother figure is almost always absent, or is a blackhearted substitute.
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Writer/directors Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman (who were assisted on the script by Irene Mecchi and Steve Purcell, who also co-directed) get points for taking familiar fairy tale tropes and standing them up on their head.

I just wish their original story felt fresher, and less predictable. There wasn't much that happened in the tale, either narratively or emotionally, that I didn't see coming a long way off.

I still recommend "Brave," because it's engaging and gorgeous to look at and is still better than 90 percent of the entertainment out there geared toward children. Placed against the mountaintop standards of Pixar, though, it falls a bit short.

3 stars out of four