Horrible directing, manipulative, flat story

Rating: 4/10 (1 August 2014)

I saw someone else say, "Beautifully made." No, it wasn't!
I liked the authentic sets, and the casting was appealing. Brian Percival's directing is abominable. The accents are OK, but now and then comes a distracting ja or nein. Are they speaking English as a second language? Percival makes every knock on the door, no matter how innocent or routine, sound like the Gestapo, so he can gin up the tension. He completely mushes up the title character Liesel's love interest. The boy next door has a crush on her, and (maybe) she has a crush on her Jewish cellar-dweller, but nothing much happens. We never know what either are to her. Sophie Néllisse has a big, expressive mouth. She'd make a good Disney character.
The "book thief" part of the movie seems incidental, more like a prop than the title. The beautiful blond Rudy is the most interesting character, whose story could have been made into its own movie. But he remains, like the title, just a prop.
The voice of Death, the narrator, is almost identical to Goeffrey Rush's voice, which helps muddle the story line. So, Death is Leisel's foster dad? The ending was an unnecessary downer -- on a cheap, melodramatic note. It's as if the director had run out of things to say or do and just killed everybody off. Here sentimentality trumps substance. Maybe the book ends this way, too, but it could have ended with everybody surviving -- quite possible -- with the message intact. But it would have required more work by the author...and the director. As it is, the message seems to be, "Books are good, Nazis are bad". OK.