Two hours of scenery would deserve more seconds of characters

Rating: 6/10 (25 February 2012)

From director Peter Weir I have seen movies that spend rich but near silent moments on building characters and rapport with the protagonists, in a masterful way. With The Way Back, there is wonderful scenery and much dialog to drive the epic tale forward - but sadly not enough scenes focusing on the characters, the inherent struggle in the joint endeavour we are experiencing. Perhaps sticking to the original story made the path too linear, or editing simply became overwhelming considering the huge amount of vivid and colourful footage of this movie. I would have wanted more and longer quiet but conflict full scenes early in the movie - for example the route into Siberia could have been a 5 minute long silent tour de force to have us really understand the solitude and low temperatures. Nevertheless a beautiful and exquisite piece of film - but it could have become more engaging with different editing.