Great book, OK but not great movie

Rating: 3/10 (26 December 2013)

I have the greatest respect for Erich Maria Remarque (and his sister, killed by the Nazis after he wisely fled to Switzerland) and his anti-WWI novel. But this portrayal of the book was disappointing. Many of the minor characters carried off their dialog just a molecule better than my fellow students in grammar school in our 1952 Christmas Pageant, which nearly felled my father from laughter. The intonation was that of a catechism recitation, not a live interaction. However, towards the end, things improved enough for me to feel the actors were not really actors but, sometimes anyway, real people as portrayed by actors. PS this review does not contain a "spoiler" to my knowledge. This is because I do not know what a "spoiler" is.