Good movie but grossly overrated

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

0/4 BOMBNot many people know about Liam Neeson's acting debut for the big-screen. I didn't at first either. As a matter of fact, I wasn't engaged enough to realize Neeson was in this garbage until the credits rolled... It was so bad that its just too hard to give this review a nice intro.The movie is an inept reimagining on John Bunyan's classic of the same name. It chronicles Pilgrim's journey of righteousness. If Pilgrim's Progress (the book) had a plot that could do well on screen, that's one thing. This is another.The acting was more tedious than any other aspect of this movie. It was as dry as firewood and about as convincing. The cinematography is in dire need of experimentation. Scenes are either shot in the standard 30's style and no imagination. Then it hit me: There was probably only one person in the room passionate about making this film... the poor investor.I'm not going to go on criticizing every little detail of this movie. It's not that I don't want to, it's that this movie has a profound lack of attention to detail, among its heaping pile of problems. This movie is a true stinker in every sense of the word, and somehow, Neeson made it big time in spite of it.

Bunyan's work contains so much potential for a fantastic film- and this attempt just misses it. Where is the fight with Apollyon? This story is action packed, and in the hands of good director would be a visual masterpiece with a riveting story. This? It's garbage. It's slow, unexciting and visually appalling even for a late 70's production. Good grief, even the 50's animated version outdoes Anderson! Of course, all my fellow Christians will adore it because they like the message while completely missing the utter lack of artistic imagination.The actors are not inspiring- we need a protagonist who displays the variety of emotion described by Bunyan. I really wish a capable director had made this movie a few decades earlier and cast Jimmy Stewart as the main character. The choice of George Beverly Shea as the narrator doesn't help at all. Seriously, was there no one else willing to do this? The sets are equally uninspiring- the story is basically a walk in a lush green, tame countryside that never changes. This story begins with a man going stir-crazy and this garbage has him sounding apparently confused with a lovely English countryside behind him. They needed grit, drama, emotion and beauty. They delivered none of these.

I live in Africa where this film is used in village outreaches and the crowds really respond to this film. The simplicity of it makes it cross- cultural, and the lack of special effects and "action" makes it understandable rather than dazzling to people who are not jaded... I have seen crowds burst into applause when Christian's burden rolls away at the foot of the cross. It really brings the message of God's grace to people, even children. And the final scene where Satan is pointing to gravestones saying "That one's mine, that one... how about you?" makes the message clear. If you are looking for entertainment, keep looking; but you should know this about the film: God is still using it!!

Although it was a worthwhile aim to transfer the greatest allegory in the English language to film, this work utterly fails as art because it makes wholesale changes in a book which every student of fine literature should know by heart, and for no good reason. The sets are beautiful and the pace is satisfactory, but making the devil pop up at every turn and ending the movie with him being a "boogey man" rather than one who, as the Bible says, transforms himself into an "angel of light," ruins this seemingly amateur effort at filmography.