Better then expected

Rating: 9/10 (31 March 2001)

Better then expected
This was actually a very good movie, but that was not what I expected. After have seen a couple of interviews with Jean-Jacques Annaud - and also after had seen his latest movie with Brad Pitt - I was afraid that he had become to interested in the commercial parts of the movie industry and that the movie would follow standard form 1A...but it didn't.
The fact that everybody talks english wasn't at all as annoying as I had expected either. The thing was that it would have been very strange if the movie involved talk between germans and russian and both are screaming in english but they don't understand each other...luckily there is no such talk between the both parties so then it's ok with english.
The actors was of varying standard. Jude Law - whom has gotten much criticism for his part wasn't all that bad. Rachel Weiss was worse - can't understand why they screened her. Joseph Fiennes was ok but not more...and Ron Perlman was - not good but contributing to the movie with his presence. Best was Ed Harris as the German nobleman....there was real blue blood in his veins. Bob Hoskins was ok as Khrushchev.
The settings was magnificent and the sf/x was good.
One annoying thing was the music...James Horner must have some other music than 'Braveheart' and 'Titanic'....sometimes it felt like he had just taken the score from those two movies and added them in this movie. Not good - even thou the music is good it's sad to hear it in all the movies in which he composes the score.
All in all. a 9/10
One more good thing was that the love part of the movie wasn't as misplaced as it was in Braveheart.