Alright, Harry here. I received about a half dozen brief pieces on ANNA AND THE KING and they all basically said the exact same thing. Kinda scary really. They talked about great cinematography, good performances from Chow and Jodie, cute kids and that it sped by at blinding speed of a snail. That it crawled along feeling like it was taking years to get through. WELL.... This was a test screening of the film. In fact the director and studio may now very well go in for quite a bit of editing to let the movie move. Or... The score may pick up the pacing quite a bit. Who knows... but at least at the 4 months to release mark... it was a good movie that was tooooo long. I wish in one of the reviews they had actually given an idea of running time.... just so we'd have a gauge. ANNA AND THE KING recently moved their release date back to December 17, opposite many good movies including THE GREEN MILE. Hopefully this film will end up working for us. Of course... many people complained about the length and pacing of THE LAST EMPEROR... and it didn't fare too bad... Well... let's wait and see, but for now... I'll put you in the hands of THE TICK...
I just caught a preview of ANNA AND THE KING at the AMC La Jolla 12 in where else . . . La Jolla. I feel tired after watching it. I don’t want to bag on the movie because it is a finely crafted, well-acted piece of filmmaking with some great cinematography. But it was so slow I think the audience aged five years while sitting through it. Yes, I know the story was paced to match its Thai setting and era, but good heavens I could have put away “Atlas Shrugged” and had a bowl of ice cream before that movie finally ended.
Beyond the glacial pace, Foster and Yun-Fat do admirable jobs with well-worn characters. They show us nothing new. They just get the job done. I must admit I find it weird to see Chow without two .45’s blasting away, but I got over it. The supporting cast is serviceable too. Nobody stands out in any way, but this is also due to the uninspired tale that has been around forever. The kids are cute and they steal many a scene.
I really appreciated that the Thais, when speaking to each other, actually used their native tongue, unlike so many other lame Hollywood movies which have the actors speaking English with an accent – witness Robin Williams’ new piece of crap LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, PART II, THE POLISH YEARS . . . oops, I’m sorry JAKOB THE LIAR. Anyway, the costumes, the attention to detail and the sets are all quite nice eye candy, but the movie left something to be desired.
So overall it was a nice movie. I have no real complaints beyond the been-there-done-that-feel and the pacing of an 80-year-old on Valium. Would I recommend it to anyone under 30? Maybe a few girls I know might enjoy it but definitely nobody under 20 will like this movie. Older people may dig it, but they, of course, know the story, so really they shouldn’t bother either. What a shame, they probably sank 40-50 million into this well-intentioned movie and it’ll be lucky to make half that at the box office. If you want a quality flick, pass this up and check out AMERICAN BEAUTY.
