A classic? How?!?!?!

Rating: 5/10 (25 December 2001)

I have read the novel & seen the movie, & I don't understand why everyone says it's great. I hated both, though the film was a tad better than the novel. Gregory Peck is probably the only good thing about the film. However, he is like Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi. His scenes are solemn, while just about everything else is goofy.
There are several things I didn't like about both the film & the novel. First, the names. We have two Greek names (note, this is the southern US), a dog's name, a pickle, an onomatopoeia, and a name that's being pronounced 3 different ways. Second, Dil should not have been written into the story in the first place. He was annoying in the book, & even more annoying in the movie. He had one of the most annoying voices I've ever heard, it looked like his head was too big for his body, and if he's so rich why does he only have one change of clothes? Third, events that were irrelevant to the story. There were a lot more in the novel, which the screenwriters were smart enough to leave out. In the film, there are only two big ones: Mrs. DuBose & the mad dog problem. The last one I'm going to talk about is how fast Jem matures. He's only 12! To quote Cameron Crowe's film Almost Famous, "You've robbed him of an adolescence!!" I'd explain more things I didn't like, but I have a word limit.
So in conclusion, I thought this was a bad film, though I thought the novel was worse. If you haven't read it yet, don't waste your time. I've seen the movie twice and I don't get why it's such a classic. I'm glad Lawrence of Arabia won the Oscar that year (though I thought that one could have been a bit shorter.) Have a nice day! =)