I Finally Found A Film I Hate (Part 3) · 10:30pm Apr 27th, 2020
Sorry I’ve been so absent for a while.
This and that kept getting in the way (Those two are never satisfied)
And it’s a good time for a bit of binge-watching even if it’s not too pleasant. I’ll have to make time to watch the 2002 version later.
Okay, so...I’ve gone over it a couple of times and I was wondering if I should include a few good points.
I’ve already explained that the casting is misplaced and underutilised so I can’t include that.
I will say that the costumes are nice. It earned the Costume Designer, Barbara Kidd, a reward according to Wikipedia and I’d say that’s fair.
She certainly put a lot more into it than the directors, that’s for sure.
The music isn’t bad and while I’m not a fan of the lighting, it might just be because of the dodgy transfer I found on Youtube. Compressed in the 2 by whatsit ratio and such, it’s a bit awkward but it might just be the transfer itself.
‘Are you serious, Patch?’ I hear someone ask ‘Do you honestly care about the lightning that much to include it here?’
No! I don’t! No-one does! So you can see, therefore, I haven’t much to work with here in terms of pluses in the film.
So...(Swigs)...back to Part 2 of the film and Part 3 of the review.
We start back in Crummles’ Theatre and we’re treated to the Infant Phenomenom’s performance which is...really quite terrible...and not for the right reasons.
The Infant Phenomenon, Ninetta Crummles is the daughter of Mr and Mrs Crummles and she’s very prominent in all their performances with plays like Shakespeare and such being edited to fit her dancing in. A very good line from the snide Mr Folair (Played by Alan Cumming in the 2002 film) adds a bit of insight. Mr and Mrs Crummles are very proud of announcing that, despite her training and talent, she is not a day over ten years of age but when they leave, Folair snipes to Nickleby and Smike...
“‘Infant Phenomenon’! Infant Humbug is more to the point! The girl has been ten for the past eight years! They keep her on a diet of gin and water to stunt her growth! It’s that hammy sprawler that keeps the rest of us from doing our specialities. Mine is the...Highland Fling.” (A slight play on the fact that Alan Cumming is quite a patriotic Scot and actually performs the Highland Fling at the end of the film. It’s worth seeing when you remember this guy played Nightcrawler and Boris Grishenko)
But anyway, you get the idea. The Infant Phenomenon herself doesn’t really have much talent and the idea that her parents stunt her growth is based off a historical scandal around the Victorian child actor Jean Margaret Davenport where the same accusation was levelled. In the 2002 version, she’s a sickeningly saccharine actor who is seen off-stage swilling brandy while the Crummles still treat her as a precocious innocent young girl to play up the façade and bring in more crowds. The whole thing is meant to be funny and awkward.
You see, awkwardness as humour in a film only works if you make the characters feel more awkward than the audience.
But here, despite the whole film being awkward, there’s no attempt to make seem as such. The actress playing her is almost worryingly stiff and silent and I don’t think the director got the message that she’s not meant to be really any good.
It’s not that she does anything spectacular here, more the fact that she doesn’t do anything stupid. She’s given more screen-time but she doesn’t really do anything.
The filmmakers extended the film to give scenes to a character they didn’t do anything with.
So...is that a statement that they’re doing exactly what the Crummles do in-context...or just crap prioritising?
So the Crummles stand up and declare the show a success and Lenville again tries to behave more snotty and loud than the scene and acting warrant.
Dude, you’re not Armitage Hux and this film has long passed the margin of making the ham-and-cheese come across as endearing! At the risk of sounding silly, stop with the dramatics!
I should also point out that during the argument Nicholas gives little to no hint of courage or indignation.
No, I haven’t forgotten that he basically ripped into a simple-minded young woman earlier. This just comes off as insincere. And the Crummles are no help. They basically agitate the relationship of the two and admit, openly, that Nicholas is more handsome so he should get the major part!
Who are the good guys again?!
And again, the conflict is overturned through sheer cringe as Lenville tries to, in his own words ‘Pull his nose in full view of the company’ and takes a dive like a poor-sporting footballer yelling for the ref.
It’s over in a minute and it feels like an hour!
So then we get a short scene with Kate Nickleby and her mother and, well, is it me or is Kate’s mother being passive-aggressive here, as if blaming her for her attempted rape?!
I mean, in the books, there’s a hint of it (It is, after all, reflective of the stigma at the time) but the mother is implied to be slightly losing it after her husband’s death and still locked in a very desperate mindset. Here, due to the stilted acting and just generally snide tone from almost all the characters, she sounds actively malicious towards her own daughter.
And, ironically, Ralph Nickleby doesn’t! When Verisopht and Hawk are approaching him, asking him where they can find Kate, he’s trying to bluff them off!
Again, who are the good guys again?!
The idea that Ralph Nickleby has a heart is, in itself, quite a good one. The 2002 version has this as sort of ambiguous.
Christopher Plummer’s Ralph shows some sympathy towards Kate but nonetheless does not hesitate to send Hawk her way if he sees clear benefit. It seems he hopes that she simply grows used to her situation and lacks the spine her brother possesses.
Here, Hawk and Verisopht then meet Mother Nickleby at Ralph’s office and arrange a visit to the opera.
But if that is actually their angle, they’re not doing enough with it and nor are they having the characters respond to it. Ralph is treated like the villain even if he isn’t acting like one which again, feels like they’re trying to just shift the scale of protagonism and antagonism around for no real reason and to no real end.
Okay, next scene, Nicholas and Smike are putting their makeup on for the Crummles performance.
Sorry movie, but if you’re trying to up the homoeroticism from the 2002 version, it’s too little too late.
Can I also say that I’m kind of disappointed in Lee Ingleby’s performance, though I’m not sure it’s his fault. I do like his acting in most stuff I've seen him in (He was the Bus Driver, Stan Shunpike in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)
Here, most of the time, he has this very slack-jawed look to him that he has almost every scene he’s in.
Smike is meant to be somewhat mentally-challenged, but he is also quite emotional. Jamie Bell in the 2002 version will have everyone in tears (I remember because I showed it to my uni friends on film-night and all the girls felt sorry for him and a few of the boys too. He’s a very endearing character.)
Here, watch this scene with Jamie Bell and try not to smile as he does at the end.
So at this scene, Smike talks about what little he remembers of coming to Dotheboy’s School and who sent him there. This is actually something the 2002 version rather skirted around but it’s something that becomes very important. I hoped it was going to go into a sort of flashback but the Crummles shrill music is in the background and Ingleby’s trying too hard to put on a West Country accent.
To get the West Country right, do what we did in Drama class and say this over and over...
“Oi come frahm Sum-arr-set”
So now we come to the scene at the opera where Ralph Nickleby invites Kate and her mother to a box that ‘just happens’ to have Verisopht and Hawk in it.
In the 2002 version, this is Ralph’s plan from the beginning but here, it was her mother’s plan which, I suppose doesn’t change it a whole lot but again, Ralph isn’t showing himself to be the villain everyone seems to feel he is.
Next, there is a scene where Hawk is close to Kate and you can hear her breath as you know how terrified she is of sitting so close to her attempted rapist who sips wine with a smirk inches from her.
Here, I admit, there is quite a good bit of tension, although I wish they’d turned down the opera music in the background, maybe set a sousaphone to play some murky ambience or whatever they do in the SFX department. Anything to make us feel as disturbed and afraid as Kate is. Dominic West, bless him, is trying here but the direction of his character is just to wonky. Either he’s a sly, cunning, manipulator or he’s an abrasive, drunken lecherous bully as we saw in the previous scene. You can’t have it both ways, at least from the audience’s point of view.
Coming back, again to the 2002 version with Edward Fox’s Hawk (Yes, I get that that’s two animals that live in relatively the same place and have very similar behaviours . Pretty clever actually) they’re watching a Romeo and Juliet performance and he whispers very faux-romantic lines that make your skin crawl as clearly it does the same to Kate. As Romeo (Who we wish was Nicholas here) gives the famous line ‘Oh, see how she leans her cheek upon her hand. Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand that I might touch that cheek’, Mulberry Hawk coos to Kate slimily...
“I should like to be your glove...as much to touch your cheek as to grip your fingers.”
You may throw up now.
I should say that the actress playing Kate here, Sophia Myles (Erika from Underworld and Darcy Tirrel from Transformers: Age of Extinction) isn’t bad in herself but she’s not well-directed.
She comes across as more pouty at her situation than anything else and while her terror at Hawk’s unwanted advances aren’t poorly-acted, the director isn’t showing enough focus on it.
I’m not saying an attempted-rape should always be the focus of a story (It wasn’t in my own stories focussing on Fleur de Lis) but it shouldn’t be glossed over either. Even if it happens in the background, it still needs sufficient impact. Here, it’s over too quickly and its chemistry is really stilted.
When she says “I hold you in the bitterest contempt, sir” and he replies “And I intend to hold you like this!” I half expected canned-laughter with how cheap that retort sounded.
I know that wasn’t in the book for certain!
Can I just say that Romola Garai as the 2002’s Kate Nickleby is...absolutely lovely. She’s got quite an unconventional beauty to her, quite broad chin, button nose and prominent cheekbones and very elegant all round.
Sort of a middle-gap between Emma Watson and Gwendoline Christie (Two of my all-time favourite actresses).
I don’t know what it is but everything about her just makes me feel sunny inside!
Sorry, I don’t normally gush over actresses and when I do, it is purely meant as an aesthetic exercise.
I’ll stop now...
But in any case, Kate in the 2002 version is as sympathetic as Smike and also shows substantial backbone in her retorts towards Hawk and her uncle who lured her to his associate’s clutches.
Kate here, in the 2001 version I’m watching, is unfortunately, far too docile to admire here. Her situation is a sympathetic one but an essential part of Kate Nickleby’s character from the book is her fortitude and strong will she shares with her brother, working hard for a living and defending herself from her attackers. Here, her mother and Verisopht find her before Hawk can actually rape her while in the 2002 version, she escapes his clutches (Implied to have actually struck him) on her own.
Afterward, there’s a scene which does give more depth to Ralph Nickleby and I sort of get more insight into where they’re taking the character but it leaves me more confused at the conclusion than anything else.
He explains quite plainly that the men who assaulted Kate are not his friends, merely his business colleagues and he can’t afford to offend them.
Kate says “I trusted you.” which, while not unwarranted is too much of a clichéd line to feel serious here and Ralph delivers a line which is, I admit, quite powerful.
“We all have our trials, Kate. This is yours.”
Coming out of Charles Dance, it certainly sounds pretty biting but unfortunately, it really takes the character out the intended depth.
I admit, I don’t quite recall how short of cash Ralph Nickleby is meant to be in the book (I don’t think it’s really established) but he’s certainly not strapped for it in the 2002 version. He lives quite grandly but is clearly mean with money and he treats using Kate to tempt his colleagues into investing with him as, appropriately enough, simple business. Him and Kate’s conversation really emphasises their contrary natures and approaches to the situation. He’s eating breakfast when Kate tells him she’s been sexually assaulted and the scene plays out really well. Kate, despite clearly being near-broken, holds her head high and speaks with sincerity and integrity while Ralph just tries to get her to brush it off and the implication is that he’s trying to groom her!
· Kate: Uncle...I have been wounded past all healing...and by your friends.
· Ralph: (Dismissive) What can you mean? I have no friends.
· Kate: If they are not your friends, then more shame on you for bringing me among them.
· Ralph: (Sardonically) Ah...I see you have some of the boy’s blood in you.
· Kate: (Strongly) I hope I have. I should be proud. You know what happened under this roof. Last night was far worse. You have influence with these men. One word from you would induce them to desist.
· Ralph: (Nonchalantly) What of it if an old man whispers inanities in your ear on Monday? Some other novelty will spring up on Tuesday. In the meantime, you must be practical. The money that allows me to help you and your mother, in some portion, comes from these men.
· Kate: (Respectful yet defiant) Uncle...I am grateful for all that you have done for us...But do not mistake me. I am not a toy. I will live with dignity. If that means that I must set up my mother and myself on our own and hide myself from your friends, I will do so, knowing God will help us, even if you will not.
The scene is very appropriate towards Dickens’s writings. The dialogue is spot-on and it reflects his views on placing honour before coin and showing self-reliance at every turn, having faith in God as a guide and protector rather than a punisher (Something Dickens reflected on a lot in his activism against public execution. I myself am agnostic but I do very much value the message of having faith in something good, no matter what it is.) and most importantly, Kate still showing strength and pride in herself and her family despite what has happened to her. In the modern day, with sexual abuse being such a hard and deep topic, she’s quite a good role-model and Dickens was trying to fight against the stigma of viewing a woman who lost her virginity in a sordid way as below-human, defiled forever and not fit for society.
I’ve already established that the 2001 version fails to make Kate seem strong and wise enough in this regard but coming back to Ralph, he seems almost like he’s got no choice in the matter and if that’s the course the writer’s set on, okay, that in itself is quite a good idea, but it means that the other characters shouldn’t react to him the way they do.
Despite the story having him not act like a villain he’s still treated like one so there’s no real change or impact.
I know the Disney Remakes get this sort of flack a lot but even then, they try to make it count for something. The villains are given more depth but it’s established that doesn’t make up for what they’re doing. They could certainly do more with it but it’s something.
This, however, feels like something they gave up on half-way through or wrote out of order.
I wonder if there was one writer for Ralph and another writer/s for the rest and they didn’t communicate? It seems like a fair assumption.
And I’m not even sure it was one writer for Ralph because he finishes by saying...
“Riches and power are the only true sources of happiness.”
So wait, is he given more complexity or isn’t he, movie?! Because I wouldn’t even expect Charles Montgomery Burns to say something so Saturday-Morning-Cartoon-Villainous!
Then he all-but-openly states he’s attracted to her himself and here she actually stands up to him but again, she sounds too stroppy and her dialogue is clichéd.
“Never, uncle.”
[Insert Star Wars Joke here.]
So anyway, next scene...
Oh yeah, I forgot about this guy.
Throughout Nicholas and Kate’s ordeals, they’ve had a friend in Ralph’s belaboured clerk, Newman Noggs, who keeps them informed of what’s happening and who to trust.
In the 2002 version, Tom Courtenay plays him and he’s clearly a very gloomy man (Think Eeyore if he was a Victorian gentleman) but he gets some subtle jibes at Ralph’s expense, deliberately taking as long as possible to deliver letters and skirting around his questions by faking incompetence. His interactions with Nicholas and Kate are also very heartwarming.
Here though, the reason I forgot about him is that I don’t understand why he’s in this situation at all.
He’s played by George Innes (Bill Bailey in The Italian Job) who, again, is alright in himself but he lacks the atmosphere one would expect from a gentleman of his disposition.
That’s not a classist thing, it’s a point about the character. Newman was once a successful businessman with a decent heart but he fell into debts with Ralph Nickleby and also into alcoholism. He’s become a bit erratic and nervous but he still manages to help Nicholas despite himself and feels he owes him since his father helped him when he had nothing. What’s required from him is a sense that he is a well-brought-up gentleman at heart behind this trodden-down shell, with effete speech and mannerisms and a tendency to whittle on.
There’s very little of that here. This version of Newman Noggs seems to be trying to be some kind of Sirius Black-ish character and appears too gruff, streetwise and down-to-earth to have once been a gentleman and certainly not a desperate man. He doesn’t really do or say much and his disdain for Ralph Nickleby, who’s he’s forced to work for in order to pay off his debts, comes across as too open and obvious for a man like Ralph to have put up with for this long.
Underneath it all, my biggest complaint so far is there’s just not enough hope in this film.
The theme of keeping up hope and moving forward and helping each other out is arguably Nicholas Nickleby’s most important theme and the reason I love it so much.
Here, the tone is too gloomy and grim and everyone looks so miserable.
We’re more than half-way through and I can count how many times the heroes have smiled on my hands!
Back to the Crummles (I’m getting tired of this lot, to be honest).
Now they’re pressuring Nicholas into writing them plays and again, they sound villainous while doing so.
Nathan Lane’s Crummles in the 2002 version suggests this as a throwaway line and I do believe they try it in the book but it’s meant as somewhat comedic. Here, it just looks sinister, especially when it turns out they want him to translate a script from a French play they’re basically plagiarising.
I’ll admit though, there’s a part where the letter from Newman Noggs comes for Nicholas and Mr Crummles thinks he’s a competitor offering Nicholas a better deal that made me chuckle a bit but my enthusiasm goes right out the window when Nicholas just up and leaves the Crummles troupe where, in the 2002 version, his fond farewell to the Crummles and Nathan Lane’s “Farewell, my noble, lion-hearted boy.” is a scene I so enjoy.
Again, are these guys meant to be good guys?
I realise it was a bit more ambiguous in the books whether the Crummles were on the side of good, but Nicholas was always very good to them and they were good to him. This film just completely skirts around that and I can’t understand why.
Okay, at last we get Nicholas confronting his uncle and...well, it’s not terrible but it is very rushed and its dialogue is nothing great. It all happens in Ralph’s office, there’s a moment when Ralph moves to grab Smike (For no real reason, mind you. He’s meant to be angry that the boys caused him to get in trouble with Squeers but that hasn’t really been well-established and it just comes off as petty. Ralph is simply not meant to care about Smike or much about anyone) Charles Dance and James D’Arcy try here but there’s just not enough substance. Nicholas doesn’t do anything to stop Ralph coming after him in revenge and almost ignores him, by and large.
(You don’t ignore Charles Dance, mate. It’s not wise)
The 2002 version cuts diamonds with how powerful the dialogue and atmosphere is! In the Grand Exchange, Nicholas takes his uncle down a peg in public with Newman silently cheering him on, all with lines I just adore for their fire!
· Nicholas: (Angrily) You are known to me now! Every suspicion viciously confirmed!
· Ralph: (Coldly) And you to me.
· Nicholas: (Indignantly) I? What wrong have I done?
· Ralph: Did you not attack the schoolmaster?
· Nicholas: The monster was beating a crippled boy!
· Ralph: (Contemptuously) Hah! You choose to restore that boy?
· Nicholas: No more than I would restore a lamb to a wolf.
· Ralph: Then your appearance here to beg my help is in vain! (Turns to leave but Nicholas moves to block his path)
· Nicholas: (Loudly) You mistake the point of this conference. We knew no shame until we knew you...and the degradations we have endured, whether at Dotheboys Hall or in the dark box of a theatre...all trace their poisoned roots to you! You did not want us when we came and it shamed me to seek help from someone unwilling to give it. Now our only shame is the blood which binds our name to yours. Therefore, your brother’s widow and her children renounce you! May every recollection of your life cast a terrifying darkness over your deathbed! How soon that day may come, I cannot know. But I do know that in our life, you live no more!
And later we come to Nicholas confronting Sir Mulberry Hawk and Lord Frederick Verisopht and, oh goody, they’re drunk in a tavern with strumpets on their knees.
Are we in Dickens or Pirates of the flipping Caribbean?!
And again, what should come off as tense and brave is made cringeworthy by the drunken lords bursting out laughing at just about every line Nicholas says.
Nicholas actually says he’s going to follow Mulberry Hawk home until he stops bothering her sister.
Goody, now both of them are acting like children!
So they get in a scrap and, ah good, Nicholas is tossing Mulberry to the ground and...
Gets knocked out by Mulberry Hawk as he gets up and left in the dirt while his sister’s attempted rapist gets away...
Is...is the goal of this film to make the audience miserable?!
There’s still an hour and a quarter left of this film! I don’t know how much more of this I can take!
Okay, okay, next scene.
Hawk and Verisopht confront Ralph Nickleby for...When did Hawk get a broken arm?!
Nicholas pushed him to the ground and he got up and slugged him! There is no way he broke his arm!
I know people in those days weren’t as healthy as they are now but come on!
So Ralph starts by apologising for what Nicholas did but noticeably calls it a ‘punishment’.
So again, is he on their side or not?
Of course, a villain who prefers to side with the hero against another villain is a good idea in films, one I often quite enjoy seeing, but this is not how it works.
Especially not with what follows.
Hawk pressures Verisopht into calling off his investments with Nickleby and also defaulting on his debts by declaring it ‘compensation’. And here, Ralph Nickleby is completely flummoxed.
No! No! No! You do not flummox Charles Dance! Charles Dance flummoxes you!
Any interest I had in seeing Ralph Nickleby taken from his villainous persona dies here. If they’re going to play him up as someone who’s kicked around by both the heroes and villains, especially those as smug and stupid as Hawk and Verisopht, his character is ruined. And I don’t say things are ‘ruined’ often!
Ralph Nickleby’s essential purpose is to be the narrative mountain! Crossing him is regarded as impossible and everyone in London owes him a debt!
Now, earlier I did make an argument on the Star Wars forums in defence of the First Order that a villain does not necessarily have to be clever to be intimidating and how much they threaten the audience is not necessarily equal to how much they threaten the characters. This opinion is partly due to me getting into Discworld and finding the idea of a dangerously stupid villain quite interesting (Something I’ve done well with Countess Glass now that I think about it)
Let me elaborate here.
Ralph Nickleby here is clever but it’s shown that that doesn’t help him. If people can just wave away his debts thanks to a mistake he wasn’t really responsible for, he’s no threat to the characters or the audience. His weakness is not of his own design and thus he’s completely wasted. At this stage, he just comes off as kind of pathetic and almost sympathetic. At this stage, he’s done very little wrong other than do business with unpleasant people. Yes, he’s got a very cynical outlook but when the film itself seems to be as gloomy as he is, that doesn’t count for much.
He hasn’t done anything particularly villainous or heroic so doing this to him doesn’t work!
You’ve just made him completely helpless before the climax and you can’t do that to Charles Dance! You just don’t!
There are many actors who can play many different personalities but there are some spheres they cannot cross without losing their audience who are so used to seeing them do the opposite so well.
Michael Caine doesn’t do stupid (Without A Clue)
Orlando Bloom doesn’t do villainous (The Three Musketeers)
Charles Dance doesn’t do helpless (This bloody train-wreck!)
Can I also say that they’ve got Verisopht wrong?
Well, too bad, I’m saying it anyway.
Lord Frederick Verisopht (Yes, the pun is, I believe, intentional) is meant to be a paradigmatic upper-class twit who Mulberry Hawk manipulates as a sort of front. Verisopht later finds out how seriously his actions and those of Hawk’s have hurt Kate and makes amends in a manner that costs him his life, challenging Hawk to a duel to save the Nickleby’s from his spite.
In the 2002 version, he doesn’t actually duel Hawk but he nonetheless denounces him and Ralph Nickleby for their actions and openly states he’s ashamed of what he’s helped them do to Kate. It’s a very impactful scene that I used as reference for Blueblood denouncing Nitpick and Countess Glass in Intriguing.
There’s also a very powerful extract in the book where Verisopht lies dying looking back on his misspent life and how little he appreciated the world around him in his last moments. Dickens was making a point about the idle rich and their lethargic, unappreciative attitude to life, how they’re content to be pawns in the hands of the corrupt as long as their lives are free of worry and how they can change if ever they’re jerked out of their apathy.
Here though, like the Crummles, he comes across as openly villainous, he and Hawk having very little to separate them in terms of personality and actions. So when he just suddenly decides to stop Hawk hurting the Nicklebys, it’s almost completely out of nowhere. He was fine in laughing and cheering at an attempted rape and he’s not shown changing his outlook when Nicholas confronts him. Mulberry Hawk does reveal he’s carrying a gun and preparing to kill Nicholas but the way Verisopht confronts him, you’d think he had this planned from the start. That doesn’t work! That’s not honour! I can’t even call that cowardice! Cowardice would require build-up! This is complete character-reversal and it fails to change my opinions on him!
Also, important point about the man. He gets the last laugh.
Before duelling, he made sure that in the event of his death, his family would take compensation from Sir Mulberry Hawk, who owes many debts to him, and from Ralph Nickleby.
This is not established and we don’t see Sir Mulberry Hawk again.
So...yeah...this guy committed multiple attempted rape, assault and murder and got away scot-free.
...yay?
So now we get a ‘heartwarming’ reunion of the Nicklebys and my enthusiasm dries right up.
Kate says she’s so happy her brother’s back in the most stilted way possible (It’s actually kind of frightening, one wonders if she’s planning to kill him or something) and their mother has suddenly started going all over the top...in a very stilted way.
If this family gets anymore stilted, you won’t need to get a job in London! You’ll be too busy touring with the Cirque de Bloody Soleil!
Mrs Nickleby rants about how Ralph Nickleby and Mulberry Hawk are monsters but I haven’t forgotten how she basically appeared to pressure her daughter into staying with them. Has she no shred of guilt?! Again, this is something the book gets away with since she is still rather hysterical but here, she just looks like she’s trying to absolve the blame from herself.
Then Nicholas and Ralph confront each other where Nicholas is disowned and the scene tries to be tense and gets...somewhere but it just doesn’t work with the underlying fact that Ralph didn’t appear to intend for any of this to happen. At every point he’s been pressured by those he’s made the mistake of doing business with and now he’s getting dragged through the dirt.
Yes, he’s a bad man, but he’s not the one Nicholas should be dressing down right now.
The tone is jolty and the character interactions are inconsistent, problems are brought up and forgotten half-way through and overall the film has done a thorough job of draining away endearment factor from any of the characters involved.
Sheesh, I feel like I’m on a mud-course here and I’m only a quarter through the second half of the film!
I’m taking a breather. I’ll be back soon though, hopefully with more chapters for my fimfic.
Please watch the 2002 version.
Because its predecessor has successfully reached Cats level of awkwardness and ennui.
Frigging Cats!
Understandable. Don't get these guys to get to you
But, have you seen season 7 of the clone wars?
5251434
No but I've looked up what happens.
Any good?
5251442
Well, they basically revived the unfinished episodes, like Echo's fate and Trench. But I love how they made the Clone Force 99. Let's just say about Crosshair, Blue and Fletcher would be proud
Boy am I glad that I never watched this movie.
5251457
Well, my goal here is to kind of see where it goes wrong and understand why.
Before I call any film bad I always try to look for the reasons for its flaws and how excusable they are.
I can’t really do that here. I don’t get what they’re doing.
Still, I would always recommend the 2002 Nicholas Nickleby. Give it a watch, you won’t regret it and I’d love to know what you think.