Water for Elephants

[Vanilla]

Review/Discuss

[CoolioD1]

It's a very well made film, there's no denying. But it almost lost me because there's no chemistry between Pattinson or Witherspoon at all, their romance was pretty hard to believe. Which is obviously a HUGE flaw in a romance movie. Christoph Waltz was good in what'll probably be the same role he's going to play for the rest of his career. (the fact that he's doing something different for Carnage and Django gives me hope though)

[Letsuseournoggin]

Solid movie, but being such a big fan of the book made this, in the end, an underwhelming effort. It just lacked so much of what made the book magic.

[IndustriousAngel]

The film fell flat for a couple of reasons, the 1st being that Pattison as lead character has a very limited range. The 2nd reason: We didn't get to know the crew good enough. I actually like circus films - there are not that many to start with but the good ones always feature a good and unique ensemble of actors to establish the "small world". Some of the support roles here were ok (as was the elephant) but there were not enough of them and they didn't get time enough on screen. I would prefer this to be 30minutes longer with more circus life shown. The 3rd reason is that the story is awfully predictable, and while we can overlook that in a good melodrama, it's a pain in a film that you're not involved in.

[75Live]

While this wasn't as bad I thought it was going to be, it still fell flat as stated by others here. There was zero chemistry between the 2 main actors and that did hurt. I can see what people probably liked about the book, but the movie never came off as anything amazing or magical, it was just kind of going through the motions.

Overall, it was ok

B-/C+

[Vanilla]

One of the underrated films of 2011. Rob and Reese did fine, and I really liked Christoph. Overall a good film.

8/10

[acsc1312]

I quite liked this film. It is very well made. I wish Witherspoon would've done a bit more with this part, though. Waltz was great of course and Pattinson was actually tolerable for once.B+

[Noctis]

Beautifully made film with gorgeous cinematography and great production design. The performances from Waltz and Witherspoon were great, especially the former. Robert was tolerable, but they could have picked a much better actor. I think it captured the magic of the book very well until the last half, in which I thought it was a shame they simplified a lot of it (Marlena got pregnant in the book, Waltz was more desperate), but I loved the addition of when Waltz told Jacob and Marlena to reenact a scene he had in his mind because he thought she was cheating on him. The music was amazing, one of my favorites of the year.

Easily one of the most underrated films of the year.

A-

Edited January 11, 2012 by Noctis

[Jack Nevada]

The book was so much better. Christoph Waltz is terrific in this, but its just a very shallow and unremarkable romance, that benefits from an interesting circus backdrop

 

2,5/5

[baumer]

This film, thematically, was very similar to Titanic.  Old person at the beginning recounting his time from a long time ago.  He tells it to a young person who is fascinated by the era.  A young boy, rather destitute, thrust into a world he knows little about.  He falls in love with the rich man's wife.  They have a forbidden romance.  The rich man finds out, gets mad and tries to destroy the young boy.  Then a catastrophic even happens at the end and although he lives in this one and they live happily ever after, the post script is very similar.  They show Marlena riding a horse and other pieces of her life with Jacob.

 

I liked this movie immensely even though it was hard to take in some spots.  But when Rosie kills august, I wanted to stand up and cheer.

 

8.5/10

[Goffe]

This kind of films rely greatly on its romantic leads and their chemistry together, something that is lacking immensely here. Witherspoon and Pattinson (a charisma vacuum and poor actor) must be the boringest romantic couple I've seen. It doesn't help that the story beats are super generic and Pattinson character is cringeworthy.

 

It is visually good, though.

 

25/100