There are no words for how terrible this movie was...

Rating: 2/10 (5 November 2005)

I feel like I went into the movie with a relatively open mind. I was really sincerely hoping for a good adaptation (of the book, not the miniseries), but was sorely disappointed.
First of all, in response to an earlier review or two, if you're going to stick the actors in period clothing and put them in period settings, your aim is to be as close to the book as possible. THE END. To say that some random change from the book is refreshing or that we shouldn't be comparing it to the book...is just stupid. I'm sorry. If you're going to make a "P & P" adaptation, the majority of your viewers WILL BE people that WILL compare. It's a fact the director should have thought about when he decided to re-make this period romantic comedy that's been done and re-done three times in the past ten? years alone. Saying that he "shot himself in the foot" just seems so fitting.
That being said, some more specific comments (that i'm sure have all been said before) about the movie. First, the editing was just so terribly choppy. There was no flow. AT ALL. I guess I can understand some of it, what with the two-hour time limit, but really, if you know you can't fit it into the space of two hours (which I'm getting to think is really an impossibility), why even bother? And, at the beginning especially, the actors' lines were no better. Like in the dance scene that everyone seems to be so fond of: if you could understand them at all, they didn't space out their lines...didn't give them enough time to really CUT, like they're supposed to. And really, the time-limit excuse can only be taken so far. The cinematography was beautiful, but maybe we could have had a couple fewer images of naked Greek statues at Pemberley, a couple fewer random landscapes...but then dialogue that has the presence enough to make a point! which was really the intention of the book or really any adaptation therefrom. Seriously, you already have this huge hard-core audience (like the type that would have the time to watch the five-hour-long miniseries)...TAKE ADVANTAGE! Extend it an hour and make a movie that people will want to go see DESPITE it's being a little long!
And why exactly did they have to tone down Keira Knightley's looks? The sisters on the whole were supposed to be the belles of the county! (To anyone saying anything to the degree of "she was too flighty and/or happy"...I donno...I kinda liked that change from the miniseries...she's still a young woman and really doesn't need to act quite as matronly as Ehle portrays her in the miniseries...that she laughs in this one really is quite refreshing :) ) And then, why would an upper-middle-class family who lives off an inheritance need to have pigs running around? These people may not have been royalty or anything, but they were still substastially wealthy.
And then...there was Darcy. **shakes head in disappointment** He is supposed to be tall, dark, and handsome. He's supposed to have a presence. The actor's voice was so gorgeously deep and could have been PERFECT for this role, and yet, it just didn't fit. First of all, I have to say, he comes nowhere NEAR to being handsome. Despite his becoming a good guy toward the end (which usually serves to INcrease the pleasant-ness of an actor's appearance), I thought he ended up looked worse than he began! And then, the awkward moments between him and Elizabeth, while cute for all of 3 seconds, were really out of place for most of the movie. Someone said this earlier--he's SUPPOSED to be proud and arrogant at the beginning...it makes him all the more charming when he TRANSFORMS into a good guy. All the awkwardness just makes him look pretty much as daft as Bingley (whose daft-ness is probably a bit overdone in all the movies). How terribly sad. He pretty much just single-handedly DESTROYS one of the most powerful romantic leads OF ALL TIME.
Frankly, I think in casting Keira Knightley, they could have made an EXCELLENT modern-day adaptation of the book without compromising its integrity, (much like "Bridget Jones"). They really didn't need to go through all the time and expense of making a period romantic comedy if they didn't have the time to do it justice.