To me, this movie is perfection.

Sorry, this movie sucks

Sadly Over-hyped

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

So beloved are the Dickens novels that each new adaption of them sees fresh scrutiny. Everyone has an idea in their heads of how the characters should look/sound.I thought this mini series was OK, without ever being great. There are good portrayals, and others where I felt too many liberties had been taken.I liked Timothy Spall in his role of Fagin. He brought a fresh spin on it, that was engaging.It was a hit and miss adaption for me though on the whole.

Okay, I know Dickens is a classic writer but the plot of his second novel was botched to blazes so I can quite understand why a new remake would want to edit out the major improbabilities, but it made up for what it lacked by an artfully constructed atmosphere of pervasive gloom and menace and by some truly memorable villains.On the plus side, this adaption has a much smoother plot. On the minus what a heinous chunk of bowdlerised rubbish this production is. For example - why is Oliver sold, not bought as he is in the novel? Is that horror too much, of children available to the highest bidder? Why are the lovely visitengland.com cobbles so clean, not the stinking filth of the Victorian city? Fagin has conveniently placed two tier bunk beds in his lair for the boys to sleep in, (I've stayed in worse looking youth hostels), hardly the actions of a man and a gang hunted from hide-out to hide out as he is in the book.What is the flipping point of getting in an actress with the chops of Sophie Okonedo if you are going to mutilate the part to nothing but noble suffering. Nancy was tough, she was a sneak, a player, a genuine conflicted woman in a bad place who could still brag "there's not many people besides me that could have got out of their way." She had the nous to drug Bill Sikes with laudanum... but here she's just a cipher. It's a sad waste of one of Dickens' few interesting female roles.BTW, 19th century London was a lot more culturally diverse than some of the American reviewers here seem to believe: try google for "The London Committee for the relief of the Back Poor" of 1786 for examples. By 1838 many brothels (Dickens' Nancy was a prostitute) offered women billed as "dusky nefertitis" and suchlike.But the worst character destruction must be that of Bill Sikes, formerly the murderous embodiment of brutalised evil, now well a dog loving softie who spends a night in a mill pond protecting Olivers safety and carries him back to London in his arms. The artful dodger complains when not sent on a job with him. The deal with Bill Sikes is you'd have to be mad to want to go on a job with him. He's supposed to be terrifying. Best left alone. Here he's just a misunderstood wus who threatens Fagin for being mean to his dog.The Gothic horror has been bled from Monks' character too, now just a regular upper middle class slimeball, although it's slightly concerning to see the BBC, even in the midst of its very best family-friendly clean up job, keeps a birthmark as a proof that he's born evil.All in all, a washed out, soul-less load of tripe. This adaption might give the story more sense, but it thoroughly loses its soul.

I'm surprised that this adaptation of the Dickens classic has received so many negative reviews and that there are comparisons with the musical which is a whole different type of production. All the performances are very strong, although I think that the Artful Dodger could do with a few more acting lessons. I thought that Tom Hardy, Sophie Okonedo and Timothy Spall were particularly outstanding. Viewers seem to expect the characters to be fairly one-dimensional and stereotyped - just because Bill Sykes is a psychopath doesn't mean he has to yell all the time! I think that the director did a good job of portraying the harshness and grime of Victorian London and the cruelty and depravity of the era also. I don't want to see Dickens adaptations through a soft focus lens, this is what I want from a period piece. I do agree about the randomness of the music though.

This was an enjoyable version that held my attention despite familiarity with the material. It was more detailed than most dramatisations. Timothy Spall was very good. I had some problems with it, however:* The music was intrusive. * Bill Sikes was well acted, but seemed, unless my eyes deceived me, to have perfectly plucked eyebrows. After so much effort was taken with makeup (especially teeth), this was strange. * Julian Rhind-Tutt was weak as Monks, and his hair seemed out of period. * Edward Fox has become a mannered caricature of himself.