One of the best Lassies ever
Added 9/1/2008
Beautifully filmed, wonderfully acted by the cast - especially the dog, Mason, who is VERY expressive and responsive. As a long time Lassie fan and a long time dog trainer, this is the best. My kids loved it. It reflects perfectly the spirit of that first, old Roddy McDowell film, but this dog is a better actor, as much as I loved Pal! Great cinematography. Great acting from Samantha Morton, Jemma Redgrave and Peter O'Toole, but especially from the new child actors and Mason the Collie. Lovely work on the subtext of the class differences in 1940s Britain.
Great, great stuff. Too bad it didn't get more press in it's first release.
Good for kids old enough to understand animals and that death, sometimes, sadly, is part of life. Very uplifting ending.
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Good Dog !
Added 2/8/2008
Living in a small Yorkshire town on the eve of the Second World War ,the Carraclough parents (John Lynch and Samantha Morton)are forced by the impending loss of the father's livelihood caused by the closure of the coal mine upon which the local economy depends to sell their beloved family dog Lassie to the local landowner the Duke of Ruding(Peter O'Toole).He buys it as a gift for his beloved niece Cilla (Hester Odgers)who is missing her father ,now enlisted in the Army and fighting in France .This is against the wishes of both the dog and the Carracloughs small son Joe (Jonathan Mason).The dog escapes several times after suffering abuse at the hands of the kennelman Hynes (Steve Pemberton)and returns home ,until the Duke removes the dog and Cilla to his family estates in Scotland
Cilla who realises where Lassie's true affections lie helps the dog escape and Lassie sets out to travel the 500 miles back home .She has many adventures en route -an encounter with two monster watchers on Loch Ness (delightful cameos fron John Standing and Edward Fox),a Glaswegian dog catcher (Gregor Fisher)and a judge (Robert Hardy)a travelling puppeteer (Peter Dinklage on fine form)and two ne'er do wells (Nicholas Lyndhurst and Celyn Jones)whose plans for the dog are not exactly humane .Can she make it back home -and remain there ?
Charles Sturridge directs with a strong feeling for both the story and the landscape.The sense of period is strong and the moral backbone of the movie is firm .The score is traditional with lots of sweeping strings and tugging at the heartstrings.In short it is old school children's film making and can be enjoyed by all the family .It never resorts to cheap sentimentality and never patronises its audience .
The acting is spot on by all concerned O'Toole being specially good and the dog is delightful.It is a pity that this lovely little movie got swamped at the box office by giant apes ,cuddly penguins and talking lions
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Dear Amazon:
The movie "Lassie" was a very nice family film in a beautiful setting of England and Scotland. The scenery was very beautiful and a nice story that will be very satisfying for dog lovers, and Lassie movie followers.
A movie for young and old, pure entertainment in a very nice tasteful manner.
Mario
Concord, CA.
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Some heavy panting
Added 12/30/2007
Sometimes I'm in the mood for a film with a beautiful star that includes some heavy panting, a stand-in nipple, and a psycho-sexual subplot. Well all of this is evident in Lassie, a masterful throwback to an earlier clichéd format: boy loves dog, dog loves boy (but only an implied and heart warming zoophilia). It's just a darn good movie. The panting is the dog's, and the octo-nippled heroine is really a cross dressing star, but you won't know that unless you watch the special features. One thing is for sure, you will be rooting for Lassie to escape from one scene to the next. Will Lassie really get home? I won't say, but if you like good acting (the child actors are so good), beautiful scenery (from the highlands of Scotland to the Isle of Mann), and snow at Christmas, you are bound to enjoy this film. The only thing that would have made this better would have been if it had been produced in Bollywood and brightly colored saris had been added to a dance sequence. Spoiler alert--a great movie!
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Lassie, Go Fetch The Original Story! Go, girl!
Added 10/14/2007
One of the books that made me fall in love with reading is the original story, Lassie Come Home, written by Eric Knight in 1940. I still have my old, "dog-eared" copy. I was so looking forward to watching this highly praised modern adaptation, only to be disappointed.
One of the problems today with making a movie "for kids" is dumbing down the story and throwing in evil and comic elements. After all, kids love simple, funny stories pitting good against evil, right? In so doing, Lassie's long journey back home is given short shrift, no doubt because kids might get bored. There are sadistic characters in this film that are absent in the book. There is the cruel and unnecessary killing of a dog. And if it is possible to judge, I would say that the dog playing the role of Lassie can't act her way out of a paper bag; Lassie's happy and sad faces were virtually indistinguishable.
Do yourself and your kids a favor and read the book instead. If your kids are too young to read the original novel, there is a wonderful picture book version by Rosemary Wells and Susan Jeffers.
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