Top Ten Tuesday #2

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish 

This week's topic the Top Ten Best/Worst Movie Adaptions. This is, thankfully fairly easy for me, and I'm going to list my Top 5 Best Movie Adaptions, and my Top 5 Best Movie Adaptions.

Top Five Best Movie Adaptions:

Though they shortened events considerably and even changed the end, I did still really love Inkheart. I thought it remained close to the book in spirit and I could understand why they changed the ending the way they did. There's nothing more annoying than to set a movie up for a sequel, only to have the sequels never come about because the first movie didn't do well. I also really loved the cast. Brendan Fraser was, unsurprisingly, the perfect Mo, and I will forever picture Dustfinger as Paul Bettany. My only casting complaint was Basta; I always pictured him younger. But I didn't mind it too much.

I loved the casting choices, the layout of Ember, and the more totalitarian feel of the government, which wasn't in the book. And that was always something that bothered me about the book. In order for a city like that to survive, there would have to be absolute power; the government would have to be a totalitarian regime. The only thing that truly bothered me about the movie was the fact that they gave the story's twist away in the beginning!

Yes, they changed quite a bit of the plot. They made Esca and Marcus' friendship much more "at odds," they sped things up, they changed the end and their meeting with the Seal People. However, the changes they made worked for the movie. With so little time in which to build that strong bond which exists between Esca and Marcus, they had to create much more tension in what was going on. And I quite honestly liked some of their changes better - like Esca refusing to fight in the arena, and pretending that Marcus was his slave. But set that aside, and you have to admire their costumes and sets, and there is simply no denying that Jamie Bell was a perfect Esca.

This is a case of where I liked parts of the movie better than the book, and parts of the book better than the movie. The changes they made worked, and then there were a few that I wished they hadn't done. But overall, the cast was awesome, they captured the essence of the novel, and it was an all around enjoyable family movie. It was well made and stayed close to the novel in spirit.

While some events are crammed together, a few things cut out, and the characters' ages are upped, the movie adaption is almost identical to the book - and how can we not love that? I didn't mind that they changed the ages of the characters because the characters themselves still remained the same when it came to their personality. Rollo Weeks especially was a perfect Scipio. Like all of my other Top 5 Besties, this movie stayed true to the book in spirit, as well as in portrayal, and it captured the magic of Venice in a way that would have had me, as a kid, scrambling to visit.

Top Five Worst Movie Adaptions:

It was nothing like the book, nor did it stay true to it in spirit. All of the major gods were cast well, but the principal characters - Percy, Annabeth, Grover, Luke - were all wrong. This was a case of changing the characters' ages completely destroyed their personalities. Annabeth suddenly had an attitude, Grover was just annoying, and Percy lacked everything that makes him our lovable demigod. And don't even get me started on Luke. While I actually did like their layout of Camp Half-Blood, they destroyed the story's plot and its relevance to the later installments. They also sap the iconic mixture of humor and drama out of the story, take out some of the best parts, and slapped together an ending that made me gnash my teeth.

I am not a fan of the book - at all - but even I took issue to the movie. The book was already ridiculous and cliche, but the movie upped that to an impossible degree and forever sullied the names of some really good actors (like Jeremy Irons and Robert Carlyle). Their one success was Saphira - except all of her dialogue was pointless - and Murtagh (good job, Garrett Hedlund!). Their sets were even cool, but everything else was slapdash at best and they left out enough to where they could never make a second movie that would even halfway resemble Eldest. And perhaps that is the one mercy.

I cannot believe this movie was ever made! It completely destroyed an otherwise awesome teen spy series (and those are hard to come by). There wasn't a single good aspect of this movie; they ruined positively everyone and everything in it. People: if you have an interest in reading the series, do not watch this movie! It will completely cure you of ever wanting to read it, and that's not good, because the movie is a horrible representation of the series.

Visually, I loved this movie. I thought they captured the look of Lyra's world very well. And the casting was even good. But this is a story where you simply cannot leave anything out, and the cuts they made to the plot completely destroyed anyone's ability to understand what the heck was going on - even fans of the book. So, a visual feast, there is no denying, but anyone who is attached to the actual plot will be angry, and anyone who has never read the book will be utterly confused.

I did enjoy this movie - I really did! But not because it was a good adaption of the book, because it isn't. I enjoyed it because I am one of those people who loves to make comments, and this movie was ripe for commenting. It could have been a really good movie, but they cast everyone wrong - except Rue, Cato, Effie, and all of the other minor characters. Initially I liked who played Cinna, but after several rewatches, I've changed my mind. Gale was too old, Katniss lacked complete emotion and was too old, and don't even get me started on Josh Hutcherson as Peeta. Wrong in every way. Visually, I liked how they did their costumes, the Capitol, and all of that. But they left out some rather important plot details, and the cameraman made me motion sick.