Product: Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story
Rating: 2.0
A Tale of Two Movies
My wife and I are fans of the Anne movies and have wanted to see this for some time. Since we couldn't find it in any video stores, I bought it for my wife for Christmas, despite the mixed and mostly unfavorable reviews.After watching it, I have mixed feelings about this movie. Unfortunately, the negatives outweigh the positives. The first half of the movie is surprisingly good. It was a little uncomfortable seeing the actors so much older and their characters as adults, but in all the first half was fairly true in spirit to the original films and it set-up a potentially promising conclusion.However, the second half is nearly a runaway disaster and that caused me to look more at the faults of the first half as well. The movie relies on implausibly coincidental meetings and other happenstance to advance the plot. Right from the beginning it seems strange that 4 or 5 years have passed and yet (despite the fact that the actors look ancient) Anne and Gilbert are not yet married. This movie has way too much Jack Garrison and not enough Gilbert Blythe. It's like Sullivan couldn't find any other way to introduce conflict other than to revert to "will Anne really end up with Gilbert?" The separated-from-and-searching-for-a-loved-one plot-line that dominated the second half was tired and unoriginal. In this regard, it kept reminding me of "the Journey of Natty Gann." Gone from this film are the charm, poetry, wit, and innocence of the original films. In their place are heavy, somber, and pessimistic characters and plot-lines. Indeed, Anne seems like just another movie character in this film. There's nothing particularly special about the plot that requires Anne to be the heroine.Setting aside the un-Anne-like plot, the story itself wouldn't stand really well even if this hadn't been an Anne movie. The whole storyline with Garrison was bizarre, confusing, and (gulp) boring. Another criticism is that the movie seems to apply a modern set of values to the characters. They behaved as people might today, but not necessarily the way people in the early 1900's would have.Finally, the short conclusion is full of cliche dialogue and comes upon the viewer quickly. The resolution is no more than 10 minutes of a movie that is 3 hours in length. As such, the ending feels trite and rushed.