Too long, too plot heavy, but interesting none the less

Rating: 7/10 (19 May 2006)

Having read the book I wondered what plot lines would be abandoned. I was surprised to find the book's plots were more or less intact. A good point and a bad point. Good in that a complex interesting book found its way to the screen more or less intact, bad in that the film turned out overlong and rather too talk laden (plot lines were talked of rather than shown). The actors stuck to the task well enough but were so busy explaining things that they hardly emerged as people. On the whole baddies did better than goodies. I have rated the film 7 rather than the 6 or 5 it may have deserved, probably as a reaction to the ungenerous reviews of the professional critics which nearly prevented me from seeing an interesting effort of filming a complex book with some good action sequences, nice plot twists, some splendid photography and a bit too much gore for my taste.