The Lion in Winter
|
List Price: Our Price: $12.99 You Save: $1.99 (13%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $3.33 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Lion in Winter
Movie Review: The Lion In Winter
Summary: 4 Stars
A different view froim the O'Toole/Hepburn classic but very well acted and still as engrossingMovie Review: Proves the original is still the best...
Summary: 3 Stars
Anyone who's viewed the classic original "The Lion in Winter" understands the fabled nuance and timing of the greats Hepburn and O'Toole. Glenn Close and Patrick Stewart are exceptional contemporary actors, but they fall short in the witty repartee so evident in the original "TLIW."
The supporting cast members are barely worth mentioning (with the exception of the exquisite Jonathan Rhys Meyers-his portrayal of King Phillip is genius in its coy, cloying, emotionally manipulative aggressiveness). The actress who played Alais was utterly irritating with her grating accent and flouncing (as opposed to gracefully walking). The sons, Richard and Geoffrey, did an admirable job (although Richard showed a bit too much angst at times-he appeared to be an immature teenager instead of a grown man). Geoffrey had fine moments, but John was an absolute disaster! What should've been a character with a childish devotion to daddy dearest came across as an imbecilic moron.
This "TLIW" can't hold a candle to the original both in character depth, production design (it's a medieval castle-why is it so sparkling fresh and clean?) and direction. This was a 2.5 star effort (truthfully based on the widespread appeal of Rhys Meyers).
Movie Review: timeless
Summary: 5 Stars
Last week I had the pleasure of viewing for the third time the original Lion in Winter, and decided to check out this newer version. See my review of the original, which of course I rated 5 stars as well, for my thoughts on that. IMO,the new production is different. Not better, not worse, just different.
Glenn Close and Patrick Stewart are both fine actors who are well suited to playing their roles as royalty. Both turned in subtle, restrained performances that do credit to both themselves and the play, never allowing overbearing grandness and arrogance to obscure the humanity of their characters. Having read widely on the subject of their lives, I believe that both Eleanor and Henry were consummate power players, capable of using either bullying or beguilement as the situation required. Close and Stewart display emotion from one end of that range to the other. It's often said that love and hatred are opposite sides of the same coin, and that is certainly apparent here, between husband and wife as well as parents and children.
The supporting cast in the new Lion is also strong, though you have to wonder if the original John was really as worthless and repulsive a toady as he appears on screen.(Eleanor was certainly correct in her assessment of his kingly potential!) The other production values are stunning, with accurately researched costuming and good contrast between the richness of the interior and the dirt and squalor of the exterior settings. It was striking to watch for the servants, who performed their duties nearly invisibly, as would have been expected.
This is a movie worth watching, though a tolerance for talk over action is required. Goldman's dialog is timeless, every bit as witty, stinging, and touching as ever.
Movie Review: Glen Close is amazing!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have long been a fan of the original version with Katherine Hepburn but I am sorry to say that Glen Close is amazing in the role. She is rivoting on the screen. Strongly recommend!Movie Review: The Lion In Winter
Summary: 5 Stars
As much as I struggled to see this 2004 production without comparing it to the 1960's classic which starred Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, Nigel Terry, and Timothy Dalton, the shade of the earlier, better film kept intruding into my thoughts, so let me get the comparisons out of the way here in the beginning. Yes, the `60's version of The Lion In Winter is the better of the two movies, though I also rate this `00's version five stars and don't hesitate to recommend it as an addition to anyone's DVD library. It's a fine, artsy, stunning piece of witty drama that depicts the murderous side of the an irreparably dysfunctional nuclear family, circa 1183 AD.
That out of the way, let me say that the 2004 film was far more visually colorful than its ancestor, its sets grander, the twelfth-century more detailed, the recreation of the high era of the Age of Faith was notably loving in the hands of its superb crew. This motion picture was as gorgeous to look at as it was to watch. (Meaning the human cast often took bottom billing to the sheer might and intricacy of the setting.) If only the actors had held up their end as well, this might have done the near-impossible and surpassed all recent on-screen presentations of the Medieval world.
Sadly, the weakness lies in The Lion in Winter's casting and acting. Patrick Stewart, a masterful thespian with a commanding voice, a great actor under most circumstances, was, I'm astonished to see myself write, among the most glaring trouble spots in the presentation. Stewart was simply wrong as Henry II. He chose to portray England's most volatile king with a light, comedic merriness that delivered a great man as an unbelievable braggart. And though no Hepburn, Glenn Close was also sub-par as Eleanor, yet I found her a better match for her part than Patrick Stewart was as Henry II. And was it just me or did it often seem Close was trying to give her best Hepburn impression in this role? Better a good Close than a bad Hepburn, as an acting coach might say.
A cast member I did enjoy watching was Julia Vysotsky, as Alyse, sister of the king of France, mistress of Henry, the father of her one-time betrothed. Vysotsky is a lovely Russian actress who did a French accent well and played her part with the right mix of delicate vulnerability and covert viciousness, one moment decrying her circumstances as a pawn in the game of politics, the next urging Henry to exterminate his sons then and there on Christmas Day. Male viewers, lesbians, and assorted connoisseurs of the female form will be pleasantly surprised at her topless scene and find it a plus that it came so close to the start of the movie.
The one person I truly wish had not been in this movie at all is Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, as King Philippe Auguste. I have liked this actor well enough in other roles, notably the one in Woody Allen's Match Point, but here Rhys-Meyers plays one of France's great monarchs while looking like some sort of post-modern Jesus and acting like a present-day Hollywood enfant terrible. The way he repeatedly releases his seething "take-me-seriously-damn-you" anger makes him seem bratty and silly, unlike Timothy Dalton's handling of the part in the 1960's production with his frigidly contained hatred of the Plantagenet's being a distantly frightening thing to behold. Rhys-Meyers did have a brilliant moment, however, when he is seen smugly chuckling to himself from his chair across the great hall of Chinon as he watches Richard and John, two future kings, bickering over who will succeed their still-living father, and one can all but read Phillipe's mind as his notions of Gallic superiority are once more reinforced. In witnessing the pettiness of the two rivals, Philippe becomes all the more certain that to attain his eventual victory over England, all he need do is outlive Henry, and wait...
Another brief but impressive moment unique to this version of The Lion In Winter came early on when the camera panned back from a by then emptying great hall to show Henry's crown lying alone on a table, and it was striking how up close the object of so much ambition looked like such a small battered thing unworthy of all the fuss over it, as if someone somewhere was commenting on what a paltry thing a kingship is.
A final, smarmy note is that the cast of the 2004 Lion In Winter was nearly all English, and I expect this was made so in order to lend a certain authenticity to a story set among feuding claimants to the English throne, and yet the irony is if authenticity was sought, French accents might have been more apt, since Henry, Eleanor, and their sons, including the fabled Richard the Lionhearted of Robin Hood fame, were all French, not English, and even the setting for the play, Chinon Castle, is in France, near the Loire River. (And still standing to this day.)
The 2004 version of The Lion In Winter stands well on its own but suffers in comparison to its predecessor. It's worth the long run time and contains some nice moments. It's visually appealing and in a few moments does get a little boring, but I think anyone who loves this ingenious story and the period in which it's set will quickly forgive these flaws. I'm glad it was made, and I'm glad I got to see it after having it on my list for several years.