There are innumerable reasons why this version pales in insignificance to David Lean's 1965 classic. To begin with, not a single actor in this 2002 version can come close to competing with his or her equivalent. Sam Neill trying to compete with legendary Rod Steiger as Victor Komarovsky?! Oh, please. Worse, Kris Marshall challenging Academy Award Winner, Tom Courntenay. Just painful.
For budget-reducing purposes, this newer version includes quality-reducing period black-and-white footage in scenes that necessitate large crowd scenes.
The newer version also includes unnecessary filler scenes such as the respective wedding ceremonies of Yuri and Tonya and Lara and Pasha. What purpose is served by these boring, meaningless film footages? The worst scene is reserved for the story's finale. Lara is about to be captured by the secret police. With her is her son (by Yuri) who looks incredibly like Yuri when he was a little boy. Well, he SHOULD look like the father because it's the same child actor who we see in the beginning of the film! The audience cannot help feel as if the child has been transported by a time machine to the present.
Nevertheless, Lara, just before being captured by the authorities, tells her son to run for his life. As she is driven away in the back of the police car, she sees her little boy running desperately down the street in the middle of post-war Moscow. Despite the fact that her vulnerable son's chances of survival in such a forbidding environment are next to zero AND her own fate destined for a concentration camp, Lara, undaunted, breaks out in a huge smile of satisfaction and contentment!
Anyone who has not seen David Lean's version is truly short-changing their viewing pleasure.
For budget-reducing purposes, this newer version includes quality-reducing period black-and-white footage in scenes that necessitate large crowd scenes.
The newer version also includes unnecessary filler scenes such as the respective wedding ceremonies of Yuri and Tonya and Lara and Pasha. What purpose is served by these boring, meaningless film footages? The worst scene is reserved for the story's finale. Lara is about to be captured by the secret police. With her is her son (by Yuri) who looks incredibly like Yuri when he was a little boy. Well, he SHOULD look like the father because it's the same child actor who we see in the beginning of the film! The audience cannot help feel as if the child has been transported by a time machine to the present.
Nevertheless, Lara, just before being captured by the authorities, tells her son to run for his life. As she is driven away in the back of the police car, she sees her little boy running desperately down the street in the middle of post-war Moscow. Despite the fact that her vulnerable son's chances of survival in such a forbidding environment are next to zero AND her own fate destined for a concentration camp, Lara, undaunted, breaks out in a huge smile of satisfaction and contentment!
Anyone who has not seen David Lean's version is truly short-changing their viewing pleasure.