The Canterville Ghost
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Movie Reviews of The Canterville Ghost
Movie Review: Fun for the haunted holiday
Summary: 5 Stars
We liked this one. Pretty standard story but a really fun take for the haunted holiday viewing.Movie Review: Love the Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved this movie. It was well priced and it shipped very fast. I would buy from them againMovie Review: Seeking peace, seeking home
Summary: 4 Stars
Oscar Wilde's humorous novelette has been adapted to video a good half-dozen times, and while this is the only version I've seen so far, it seems like a good choice. The Otis family--American physicist Hiram (Edward Wiley), his wife Lucille (Cherie Lunghi), teenage daughter Virginia (Neve Campbell), and sons Washington (Raymond Pickard) and Adam (Ciaran Fitzgerald)--move into Canterville Castle for a temporary stay while Hiram is in England on a research fellowship. They soon discover that the Umneys, butler and housekeeper (Donald Sinden, Joan Sims), are hinting rather broadly about strange happenings in the house. And when a strange man appears in Ginny's bedroom and puts his hand on her shoulder, the three youngsters, at least, begin to believe in it. But Hiram, as you might expect a physicist to be, is a pragmatist who refuses to accept the possibility of a ghost, even when Lord Canterville (Leslie Phillips) supports the concept. He even begins to blame the discontented Ginny, who didn't want to leave her friends and come to England, for the ghost's doings. Unexpectedly Ginny actually confronts the ghost--Elizabethan relic Sir Simon deCanterville (Patrick Stewart)--and a strange friendship is formed. Before long she undertakes to break the curse that has shackled him to the castle for 400 years--at risk of her own life and sanity.
The best part of this adaptation is Stewart, who, perhaps because of his stage background and 27 years with England's Royal Shakespeare Company, makes a very convincing Elizabethan ghost. The script doesn't exactly follow the original--Wilde gave Ginny an *older* brother named Washington and younger twin ones, and described Otis as "the American minister"--but it happily expands upon it by making Sir Simon's killing of his wife a tragic error rather than an act of chauvanistic rage, and by adding a sequence in which Ginny and Sir Simon attempt to win Hiram over to belief by enacting the rampart scene between Hamlet and his father's ghost. Although there are a couple of scary bits, nothing in the movie (originally broadcast on TV in 1996) is too intense for grade-schoolers, and there's even a whisper of romance between Ginny and the young Duke of Cheshire (FRancis Betts), whose estate adjoins the Canterviklles'. Altogether a very enjoyable film.
Movie Review: Good Family Film
Summary: 4 Stars
I believe that this is a made for TV - family channel (ABC or Disney type) production and in that category is a very good family version. The location and production values are high quality and of course Patrick Stewart delivers an excellent performance. Neve Campbell is also good in her roll although her character (Virginia) is not very likable at first. There is some cheese to be sure but overall is entertaining and has a good moral tone. Probably not for die hard fans of Wilde and the original story but a good film to have. My wife puts it on quite often, it has a comforting feel and a happy ending ;-)Movie Review: The story and Stewart are very good
Summary: 4 Stars
This production is enjoyable, as other reviewers have commented. Patrick Stewart is very good in the role as the ghost. The scenery is also very appealing (though I'm a sucker for great English houses). Neve Campbell is adequate in the role of Virgina Otis.
However, the other actors, especially the man who plays the father, Hiram are not very talented. The plot is interesting though a bit predictable (though that is not fatal in this instance).
Somewhat recommended, primarily for Oscar Wilde's tale, Patrick Steward's action, and the setting.