416
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #49,527 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★★☆☆☆
Where's the Rest of the Film?
The movie on its own (like the book) is imaginative and very good and -- at least with the Spanish language soundtrack -- I would rate it between four and five stars. I have only given the DVD two stars, however, (and that is being generous), because approximately one-sixth of the film (18 of its original 123 minutes) has been inexplicably cut, leaving a sadly truncated 105-minute version. It is unclear why Buena Vista Home Entertainment chose to delete nearly a sixth of the film, but even if they believed that a shorter version would appeal to a wider audience (maybe, maybe not), it is unforgivable that they did not include the missing footage as "deleted scenes" so that those who wanted to see the entire film would be able to do so. This is simply too big a cut for buyers to accept (even at this rather attractive price). Rather than pay for a film that has been so badly butchered (the only worse case I know of is the Region 2 (European) version of "The Big Country," from which nearly an hour was cut, for reasons no one can explain), I will avoid buying this film on DVD until Buena Vista provides a "Collector's" or "Director's Cut" version that restores the film -- one way or another -- to its full original length.
