Amadeus without F. Murray Abraham

Rating: 6/10 (13 October 2006)

Try to picture it. Try to picture the movie Amadeus without F. Murray Abraham (Salieri). Magnificent sets, powerful music, impeccable costumes, great directing... but no character. That's the feeling I got from Barry Lyndon.
As another reviewer put it, this movie is "3 hrs of pretty pictures and wooden characters - not one involving personality." Well, maybe that's a bit harsh, but overall I agree that not one of the characters was sufficiently engaging. Just after the halfway mark (after hearing the same 8 bars from Handel's "Sarabande" played for the 7324512th time) I was about ready to pull the plug.
But I'm glad I stuck around til the end. Like I said, the grandeur of production was enough to make it worthwhile, and the plot picked up in the last 30 mins. My rating swung back from a 4/10 to a 6/10.
I just wish the characters had souls. Even the reviewers who rated this a 10/10 hardly mention the acting; they focus on the technical and visual merits instead (which I agree are 1st class... though perhaps lost on some of us non-film-school folks).
But someone's gotta say it: People born in California should NEVER be allowed to do Irish, Scottish or British accents. I say this about Ryan O'Neil as well as Keanu Reeves and Julia Roberts. Well OK, Julia wasn't born in California, but her accent in Mary Reilly was awful just the same. And yeah, I know Keanu was born in Lebanon, but he'll always be a surfer dude to me.
Bottom line: if you're a fan of Kubrick or Thackaray, you'll probably enjoy this. But since no one on Earth has ever finished a full Thackaray novel (admit it, you just bought the Cliff's Notes in high school like the rest of us), I think we can narrow this down to Kubrick fans only.