Far from the brilliance of the novel...

Rating: 5/10 (7 June 2015)

Marcus Zusak's novel 'The Book Thief' is a masterpiece that will truly make you feel what the characters are going through. It's unfortunate that the movie couldn't seem to match this feeling, at least for me. Simply put, it felt like the filmmakers had based their screenplay on the Sparknotes version on the novel. So many key plot points are missing that the storyline is a mess - you need to have read the book in order to understand why anything in this movie happens. Events from the book occur out of order in the movie, lessening their impact, and many touching scenes are cut completely.
Of course, there is some good in the film. I have to praise the writers for not adding a single thing to the story, meaning that the overall tone is retained. Also, the cinematography is simply excellent, appropriately lending a dark and dreary tone to the entire picture. But for me, the films' shortcomings far overpowered these triumphs, thus the middle-of-the-road rating. As a movie, it's quite well done, but as an adaptation, it fails.