Benjamin McDonald

I loved the book and the original miniseries. With that said, I tried to see this as its own thing and not compare it to its predecessors. This adaption didn't work in a way that I could connect with the characters. It did a poor job of setting up any motivations. The characters just did stuff. If I hadn't seen the other adaption or read the book, I would've just been confused the whole time. The jumping around in time made it worse. The story starts in the middle of the novel. We meet characters and have no idea their relationships and there are no build ups or surprises because we see where they are and not the struggles that got them there. The whole thing was just boring. I'd go on but I'm on my phone and typing every criticism will take hours. Just watch the 90s version and forget this bland production ever existed.

I love the franchise and respect what they were trying to do but I left the theater underwhelmed. It didn't feel like a major end cap to a saga and more like an episode of TV. With so many characters some of the appearances felt like they were checking off boxes and didn't really leave the characters enough to do. There were some great plot twists I didn't see coming and for a few main characters there was great development and emotion. But other parts fell flat and felt rushed and unfinished. The trailers made it look epic and it was, but at the expense of the characters. This late in the series to introduce new characters felt wrong because they didn't develop them so there was no real impact on their adventure and at the expense of characters we already knew. It made me cry and laugh but also yawn at times. I'm glad I saw it but it won't be on my rewatch list. If you're not a big fan wait for the home release.