I’ve always wanted to read The Book Thief, and when I heard there was going to be a movie, I knew I had to read it first. I finally got around to reading the book, and I can see why there is so much hype around it… but, it was soooooo boring. The storyline wasn’t that great, and the content was so dry. So after having read the book, I felt as if I should watch the movie while the books still fresh in my mind.
So let me just start this review with my first gripe about this movie. It should have been in German with English subtitles. This movie was set in Germany, with German characters. Why would you answer with ‘nein’ then continue to speak English? Same goes with the curse words. Why it was in English is beyond me (aside from the obvious fact that the director/producer wanted to actually make money; unfortunately there are people who wouldn’t see a subtitled movie). And frankly, taking into consideration the content and the underlying message of the movie (more so the book) itself, it would have had more of an impact if it were subtitled!
When it comes to the narrator, well, that was the entire reason I wanted to read the book. I was curious to see how that would translate on screen. I’ll tell you this much: it didn’t. The narration sucked. It was terrible. It was pointless. The book was written in the point of view of Death; the movie had a narrator that sounded more like a voice over for a boring documentary, not Death.
My favourite character had to be Rudy Steiner – and he wasn’t even a main character! I didn’t really like any of the actors that were cast and their horrible accents. None of them suited their roles, and they didn’t look the part at all. Especially the guy that played Max. His ‘acting’ was the worst. The connection that was being made between Liesel and Max was really forced.
Moving forward… the book is always better than the movie right? Right! No doubt about it that the book was by far better than the movie. So, so, so many things were left out of the movie. The movie wasn’t put together well at all. They took what seemed like bits and pieces from the book and just made a movie out of it without explaining any of it. You had to make the connections yourself; luckily I read the book, so I knew what was going on. This made the movie really choppy. I hate to say this because I didn’t think I’d have to, but the movie sucked.
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