A very good film, but it's not Papillon

Rating: 7/10 (3 November 2006)

I really liked this movie, which I just recently saw for the first time, strange indeed since it is more than 10 years old. It reminded me, naturally I would say, to Papillon, the 70's McQueen/Hoffman classic.
I like the story, the acting, basically everything, and I definitely recommend it to everybody. But compared to Papillon? There are so many similarities that one has to think that idea of the movie did not came out of the blue. Because of that the movie has to accept to be compared with Papillon. And Papillon is simply even better. It is emotionally much more touching, and when even Freeman's great performance doesn't match Hoffman's, there is no doubt that Robbins is not close to McQueen - in that role I mean! Tim gave a great performance but his role didn't give him the chance that Steve had.
Anyway, a joy to watch. But please watch the "original" too, it's not old-fashioned at all! I can only guess, but I think the huge differential of 9.1 for SR and 7.9 for Papillon is because most young people have never seen Papillon.