Rating (1 to 10) : 3
Summary: A movie adaptation of Jeff Shaara’s novel that is listless.
When a movie is adapted from a novel, sometimes it strays too far from it and ends up too divergent from the novel to be effective (“Clear and Present Danger” is a good example). But the other side of it is when the movie adheres too strictly to the novel when it would have been better that the director and screenwriter use some artistic license to make the storyline flow better. “Gods and Generals” has the latter problem.
I’ll say beforehand that I’ve never read Shaara’s novel. However, from watching the movie, I can surmise that the director and producer, Robert Maxwell, tried to be as literal to the novel as possible. Thus, you have scenes where the wife of a character, Mrs. Chamberlain (Mira Sorvino, Linda Ash in “Mighty Aphrodite”) recites a passage from a classic English novel even though it added little to the movie and only serves to slow down the pace. I know the screenwriters and director did so to capture certain passages from the novel. Unfortunately, doing so made it too long (an incredible length of over 3.5 hours) and made the plot lumbering. The film comes off as a docudrama but with little entertainment value outside the battle scenes.
Stonewall Jackson (Stephen Lang, Joe in “Band of the Hand”) seems to be the main character as the movie follows his career from the inception of the Civil War to when he is killed by friendly fire at the Battle of Chancellorsville. You might get a glimpse of what kind of person he was like but in actuality, he was more religious and an extreme ascetic that he eschewed anything that gave him pleasure. I also don’t think he was as receptive to the emancipation of blacks as is implied in one scene in the movie. I just wish the costume department did a better job with Lang’s beard because at times in the movie, Stonewall Jackson looks like he has a beehive hair-do glued to his chin.
If you want to see some interesting Civil War battle scenes (reenacted with the help of many real-life Civil War reenactors), this movie might pique your interest. But if you were looking for an entertaining movie, you will be disappointed, much like its predecessor “Gettysburg” (to which this is the prequel).
Why you should or should not see this movie:
If you are a Civil War afficionado who likes battle reenactments, then some scenes in the movie might be of interest to you. Otherwise, avoid this movie unless you have 3+ hours to kill. Even if you are a Civil War afficionado, you might get bored as the battle scenes are few and far between in this long, dull movie.
Copyright by the Doomster 2004