The Last of the Mohicans (Director's Expanded Edition)
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Movie Reviews of The Last of the Mohicans (Director's Expanded Edition)
Movie Review: Not One Dull Moment. . .
Summary: 4 Stars
This umpteenth remake of James Fenimore Cooper's deadly dull novel is much the best - it features terrific performances, a propulsive script, and gorgeous photography. Hollywood and television have been wrestling with Cooper's novel, whose fame this reviewer finds incomprehensible, for decades. Ultimately, every single version of the story only follows the last three chapters of the book. Yes, those few days that the films, including this one, deal with, represent just the last bit of Cooper's novel, and small wonder: the book is an interminable, pompously written, and ghastly boring piece that solemnly delivers every last racial and gender stereotype known to humankind.
Michael Mann, as have all the others who have brought this story to the screen, makes a few narrative changes to the story to suit his stars and his audience. In the book, Nathaniel Bumppo ("Hawkeye", so named for his remarkable aim with a musket), the story's white hero, has been raised by the Mohicans from infancy and is a totally asexual, folksy woodsman, not remotely interested in either of the Munro sisters; he is much more at home traipsing through the eastern woodlands with his stepbrother, Uncas. Needless to say, this was not a viable option with a star of the magnitude of Daniel Day Lewis in the role of Bumppo (whose unfortunate surname is thankfully mentioned only once in the entire script).
Day Lewis is riveting as the now-virilized hero of this version, and his work here is yet another testament to this remarkable actor's range (Hello? This is the prissy twit loser from "A Room With A View"?! The punk homosexual of "My Beautiful Launderette"?! The mismated Newland Archer from "The Age of Innocence"?!). Thin and muscled (he lost so much weight training for the film that the producers began to worry), he is totally believable as the half-wild woodsman who answers to no authority save his own principles, and the beliefs handed down to him by his stepfather, Chingachcook, who adopted him as an orphaned toddler.
The time is the French and Indian Wars of the mid-18th century. Britain and France are struggling on what was then the edge of the North American frontier for ownership of the continent. France has allied itself with the Hurons, bitter enemies of the Mohicans. The British army, entrenched at Fort Edward and Fort William Henry in upstate New York, are fighting to maintain their primacy in the region. As the film opens, the two daughters of Col. Munro, the British commander of Ft. William Henry, are newly arrived in Albany from Boston (by way of London), and are about to set out to join their father at the fort.
Their journey to Ft. William Henry (with a troop of British redcoats drumming their way through the forest like people lining up to be target practice), is guided by Magua, a Huron pretending to be a Mohawk, who has a particular grievance against Col. Munro. Magua is splendidly played by Wes Studi (who is actually a full-blood Cherokee). This role was easily the best of Studi's career - it's not easy to give Magua some dimension, but Studi manages to do so while maintaining Magua's cruel implacability.
Magua leads the group straight into a Huron trap that leaves all but the troop's Captain, Duncan, dead on the road. Duncan, who is in love with Cora, the elder sister, and has asked her to marry him, draws his sword in one last defence of the two girls as the Hurons advance. At just this moment Hawkeye, Uncas, and Chingachcook arrive on the scene and beat back the Huron attack. The three men rescue the two sisters and Duncan, and agree to guide them the rest of the way to Ft. William Henry.
However, when they get there, the Fort is about to fall to the French, and in fact, it does. The French General, very much an old school gentleman, allows the British occupants to leave the Fort after they surrender with their standard held high, and the immediate conflict is seemingly over. However, Magua allied himself with the French precisely to have an opportunity to avenge himself on Col. Munro, and has no intention of letting things end in so civilized a manner - he and his followers ambush the departing British, slaughtering most of them, including (naturally) women and children. This massacre, by the way, is a historical fact: you can see mention of it on a plaque at Fort William Henry in upstate New York.
The protagonists escape the massacre by fleeing on the river in two canoes, but they are spotted and pursued by Magua and his band. The rest of the film is taken up with the capture of Cora, Alice, and Duncan by Magua, who takes them to the big Huron camp, and their pursuit by Hawkeye, Uncas, and Chingachcook.
Hawkeye, of course, falls in love with the elder sister, Cora, who, despite her sheltered upbringing, wakes up to the throbbing pulse of life on the frontier and finds she rather likes it. Her spirited response to events forces Hawkeye to revise his initial estimation of her as a silly white woman who should go back to London and stay there. Cora is nicely played by Madeleine Stowe. Stowe never did quite make it to stardom, and if she didn't after this film, she must not have deserved to, but I can't think why. She holds up well against Day Lewis's magnetism, is very pretty, and does well with her quasi-British accent. The English actress Jodhi May plays the fey younger sister, Alice, who is crushed rather than awakened by the events around her - poor Alice is just not cut out for this. May, who may be familiar to television viewers in British vehicles such as Masterpiece Theater's "Daniel Deronda" and the LOGO channel's "Tipping the Velvet", is very touching as she tries, but fails, to stand up to the trials of the frontier. Uncas, played with quiet strength by Eric Schweig, almost immediately falls for the delicate, blonde Alice. He knows he has no shot here, but does what he can on behalf of his growing feeling for her. The relationship between Hawkeye and Cora, on the other hand, proceeds at a far warmer pace, as Cora dumps the mealymouthed Duncan in short order for the erotic charge she gets from the scantily dressed, sharp-shootin' frontiersman.
In Cooper's novel, Cora and Alice are half-sisters. Cora, the dark-complected sister, is the child of her father's first marriage to a Native woman - she has "tainted blood". The blonde Alice is the child of Col. Munro's second marriage to a white woman, and it is she who is the object of Duncan's affections. It is Cora that Uncas falls for in the novel - they are, you see, "alike". In fact, Magua also develops a yen for Cora (although a coarser one than Uncas's). Of course, Uncas and Cora, and any relationship between them, are doomed.
This scenario, however, wouldn't have worked out so well onscreen with this group of great-looking people, so Cora and Alice become full sisters, Duncan's affections are switched to Cora to set up a conflict with Hawkeye, and Uncas's affections are switched to Alice - where he has no more hope of success than he did with Cora in the book.
Well, with a book this bad, it doesn't matter how they manipulate the original plot. Believe me, watching any of the films made from this book is a far, far better thing than reading it.
The action in "Last of the Mochicans" is nonstop, the performances fine all the way around, including the redoubtable Russell Means as Chingachkook. But Day Lewis's magnetism rises above all the other performances and carries the film forward. There isn't a dull moment in it, the score is powerfully evocative, and you'll probably end up watching the film more than once. It was shot, by the way, not in upstate New York, where all these events took place, but in North Carolina, where Fort William Henry was virtually reconstructed. The cinematography is gorgeous, and the audience is treated to some sublimely romantic moments in them thar hills.
Movie Review: [4.5] A film that should not be missed
Summary: 4 Stars
This film turned out much better than I had expected. It is not one you hear mentioned everyday, but it has it's place here around my hometown in Western N.C. It is here that some of the film was shot on location, specificaly the breathtaking climactic fight on the rock face mountain (shot at Chimney Rock park, just outside of Asheville.) The scene, which is my original means for seeing this movie, was shot better than I could have imagined, and I have been to the park on numerous occasions. The music, the charcaters, the story - it all came together in this climactic finish. But enough about that, the entire film turned out to be astonishing and I enjoyed nearly every moment of it.
The cinematography of the lush forests, pouring waterfalls, and glazing mountain ranges are almost guranteed to draw you into this epic, along with an incredible score that screams epic and beauty, which is so good it's worth buying on cd. The story is well told and holds a good deal of interest, with points of view told from multiple angles - the English, French, Indians, and the Mohicans - 3 men, playing our main characters who remain neutral to the surrounding conflicts. One is an Indian father, the other two his sons, one Indian and the other an adopted white - Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) The story of these men is wondeful, showing us it is possible to stay neutral for only so long surrounded by such events. Hawkeye falls in love with an English colonel's daughter, and from there on it gets complicated, though rewarding with love and romance.
Speaking of romance, this is what the film comes down to. In the end its really about love, and that sounds cheesy, but this is one of those films that take it so far without ever getting cheesy. It is one of the best romance films I have seen. The kiss shared between Hawkeye and Cora isn't your typical hollywood kiss scene. Something about it shouts passion and love in the most realistic of senses. And then there is the other love in the film, a shared and secretive love that had an astounding conclusion in the end - both wonderful yet immensly sad and tragic. I don't want to say who these two were, because it is worth the watch to see this unfold.
If you are an action junkie, this isn't really so much the movie for you, but be pleased to know that there is plenty of action throughout. It may not hold up to scenes in films like Braveheart or The Patriot, but some of the action taking place admidst the beautiful landscapes give it that additional boost to standapart from the other films. And like most films, there's always a villain, and Wes Studi portray's Magua very well, eventually doing as he said he would, ripping the heart out of the English colonel.
Though this film will never compare to the perfection and grandness of say Dances With Wolves, this holds its own and has unique qualities that certainly sets itself apart. Very underrated and not spoken of enough, this movie is one to be added to everyone's must see list.
Acting - 4.5
Action - 4
Characters - 4.5
Story - 4.5
Overall - 4.5
Movie Review: Watch it on VHS
Summary: 3 Stars
I cannot think of a film where I didn't enjoy the Director's Cut more than the theatrical release of a film. This one is a strong exception. A few of the scenes that were expanded were nice to watch, but none were essential. With one exception: Russell Means' long lecture at the end about the fate of the American Indian. His character was a man of few words, yet here he is giving a speech that sounds more like one he would have given as president of AIM. (and by the way, the work he has done outside of film is worthy of respect, and it has earned mine, so it wasn't the content of what he said that bothered me--it was that it was out of place and out of character and destroyed the flow of the film at the end). It is what was cut that was troubling. Some scenes (graveyard) are incomprehensible now, and some of the best lines (and of course that "song" as they are searching for the women) were omitted, and it isn't clear why. Overall, the original release tells a more coherent story. We have learned why Michael Mann isn't an editor. Great film on VHS.Movie Review: A Great Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is really good. If you like "Braveheart" you will like this movie as well. Now I admit that I haven't watched the original theatrical version, so I can not say if the original version is better than the dvd version or not. But I really liked the dvd version. A good mixture of adventure and romance.Movie Review: Loved it but a tad annoyed
Summary: 5 Stars
Great movie! Soundtrack astounding and passionate! Of course, Daniel Day-Lewis! Virginian mountatins scenes are fantastic with the fog rolling in. Annoyed that some of the best dialogues are cut from this and they called it a Directors Expanded Edition.... Hey! It should be expanded and not deleted! ArgggH!