Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

A Masterpiece!

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

In my opinion, this is possibly the best movie of Terence Hill. It's funny (the kind of funny you don't laugh loudly but you smile very often) and it is also a warm-hearted comedy with human and credible characters. I think Hill is a very good director and I like the script and the way of describing Camilo and Pepone, both with virtues and shortcomings but above all human beings fighting from opposite sides (Church vs Communism) and at the same time trying to understand each other. I really think the comparison with the films of Fernandel is not necessary, this film is made in eighties and, as another reviewer comments, the times had changed. Nice score and nice (underrated) movie.

In the first place, I clarify that this is a automatic translation of my original language review, in Spanish, so that I request excuses by any spelling mistake. I believe that although it is a good adaptation of "Don Camillo, little world", does not happen of one movie to spend the short while. I believe that make a new version, and suggest to Roberto Begnini for the role of Don Camillo, and somebody like Danny De Vitto or Joe Pesci on the Peppone's role. Terence Hill, is well in the role in that version of film, but I don't believe that is sufficient like equaling the original movie of 1952. Some of the jokes they are not understood for the American audience that it does not know in general almost hysterical humor of the Italian cinema.

This movie lacks the charm and the warmth of the original stories by Guareschi. Transporting the context 30 years forward into present-day (that is: 1980s) Italy was probably the right thing to do, since the distance in time wasn't big enough to film this as a period piece, but turning Don Camillo into such a cool dude rips the heart out of these stories. Mario Girotti plays the character in Trinity style, aloof, quirky, dead-pan; but this Camillo is barely recognisable as the passionately caring priest of the books. I don't think the earlier Camillo incarnation by Fernandel was right either (e.g. Fernandel's Camillo was not physical enough), but at least it exuded the required warmth. A cool Don Camillo creates another problem: what happens with his constant little battles with Peppone and his party? Peppone's communist shenanigans are similarly toned down and as a result the antagonism between the two sides does not ring true - at least not to the extent the stories require. Thus, this film version also lacks the tension, conflict and hatred between the two camps. Perhaps there was some sensitivity here towards the American market: no children's movies with real communists in them, please!A few changes to cater for the international market are also embarrassing: the two soccer teams are called "Angels" and "Devils" (in English!) and a couple of the songs performed in Church are in English as well. This is situated in rural Italy!

This is quite an atypical vehicle for Hill. Though I've never read any of the original stories, apparently they are short stories. This may explain why there is no central plot here, and there being a mass collection of vignettes instead. It may also explain why the tone of the movie is so wildly inconsistant - sometimes it's melancholy, sometimes goofy, sometimes dead serious, sometimes of a (and quite violent at times) slapstick nature. I guess it's supposed to be a comedy at its heart, but I didn't really find that much humorous about it, though there are one or two smiles here and there.