I'm a huge fan of The Name of the Rose and I try to catch all medieval movies I can. I ran into this by chance, but read from here that it should be a good looking movie in the style of TNOTR. It wasn't at all, I was hugely disappointed.
The story is a murder mystery, yes. The setting is medieval with castles and all, yes. That's about it, I can't think of other similarities. But let's start with the good things.
The acting is pretty good as far as Bettany and a few others go. I've never been a huge fan of any of these actors, but especially Bettany played his role very well, it's not often that you see a role played so richly yet it doesn't go into theatrical over acting. The story is also interesting and the production design and locations are gorgeous.
The biggest problem I had with the movie is that it feels more like a stage play rather than a movie. While there are few nice and creative shots and - I'll mention again - the sets look great, the cinematography and lighting varies from OK to plain awful most of the time. It's very confusing. Lot's of hand held camera and there appears to be zero post processing or color correction. It felt sort of improvised, more like a theatrical act captured on video rather than a movie where you actually care about the aesthetics of the shots.
It's kind of annoying that such great sets and locations are ruined by this directorial decision. I'm guessing many didn't mind this as there are very good reviews, but to me it matters a lot how the film looks and feels. While the atmosphere is kind of medieval, it's not "movie medieval", it's like you'd be visiting the village today and they were performing this as a summer theater act. At night the castle was lit like a tourist attraction.
I was kind of surprised of all this as some on the boards mentioned McGuigan being a visual director with lackluster stories. I find this the exact opposite. The story is so much better than the visuals that ended up on screen.
The story is a murder mystery, yes. The setting is medieval with castles and all, yes. That's about it, I can't think of other similarities. But let's start with the good things.
The acting is pretty good as far as Bettany and a few others go. I've never been a huge fan of any of these actors, but especially Bettany played his role very well, it's not often that you see a role played so richly yet it doesn't go into theatrical over acting. The story is also interesting and the production design and locations are gorgeous.
The biggest problem I had with the movie is that it feels more like a stage play rather than a movie. While there are few nice and creative shots and - I'll mention again - the sets look great, the cinematography and lighting varies from OK to plain awful most of the time. It's very confusing. Lot's of hand held camera and there appears to be zero post processing or color correction. It felt sort of improvised, more like a theatrical act captured on video rather than a movie where you actually care about the aesthetics of the shots.
It's kind of annoying that such great sets and locations are ruined by this directorial decision. I'm guessing many didn't mind this as there are very good reviews, but to me it matters a lot how the film looks and feels. While the atmosphere is kind of medieval, it's not "movie medieval", it's like you'd be visiting the village today and they were performing this as a summer theater act. At night the castle was lit like a tourist attraction.
I was kind of surprised of all this as some on the boards mentioned McGuigan being a visual director with lackluster stories. I find this the exact opposite. The story is so much better than the visuals that ended up on screen.