Read the book!

Rating: 6/10 (26 July 2001)

I had just read Sharra's "Killer Angels" when I rented this video. I thought that I would enjoy the film, because the book was so excellent. However, I was a bit dismayed. The movie simply lacks a lot of the emotion found in the book. Moreover, the director chooses to ignore some of the more interesting storylines in favor of some of the more inane ones. In fact, the movie is somewhat contradictory to the book in some places. It does a very poor job of showing some of the anger that many of the Confederate Generals had towards Lee and Stuart. Moreover, it fails to show just how fanatic the Rebs were in there trust of Lee and how that fanaticism, led to their defeat. However, the thing I disliked most about this film was Martin Sheen as General Lee. His accent was laughable and physically was not near the specimen of the actual Lee. Sharra's book was a very open and critical look at the battle of Gettysburg, this movie was not. Not a bad movie, it just had big shoes to fill, because the book was that good.