Fresh and Exciting

Brilliant and touching

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

After some success Kevin made bad movies,maybe for your own fault and may be arrogant and selfish,but in this picture has a great premise spoiled by ultra nationalist direction....so hard!!!Could be a better result if loaded the colors of primary Americanism...Tom Petty former member of super group Traveling Wilburys make a short appearance as Mayor and yesterday died at 66 years old...rest in peace Wilbury...Resume: First watch: 1999 / How many: 2 / Source: Cable TV-DVD / Rating: 7

Kevin Costner's second post-apocalypse movie in the same number of years after WATERWORLD is a real yawner of a film, simply because the limited story does not fill three hours of screen time. An hour and a half and this might have made a decent movie, but at three hours the pacing is a crawl and the film difficult to sit through without losing interest. As an adventure, it's also seriously lacking in the kind of action these films require, and the minimal battles and fights that do exist are rather mundanely portrayed and uninteresting. Instead, it appears that Costner is interested in the moralising, the sentimentality, and the occasionally pretentious storyline about an everyday drifter who pretends to be a postman and invents a story of a new government in order to bring hope to the post-holocaust masses.It has to be said that the story is original and interesting (a rarity these days), but the endless padding and cheesy romance between Costner and Olivia Williams seriously drags things down. Costner is adequate in the role as the hero but seems unsure of himself at times, just giving vague expressions instead of acting when he has to. Instead of the clear-cut heroic roles of his past, instead he's portrayed as a pacifist and occasional coward who only fights after being hunted down by the enemy. His thunder is somewhat stolen by the superb and underrated Will Patton as the bad guy, General Bethlehem, who gives an in-depth and multi-layered performance as the intelligent villain and has a great screen presence - it's a shame this man doesn't get leading roles. Larenz Tate is also good as the young patriot, but Olivia Williams and her corny romance belongs in another film. The supporting cast is littered with the familiar faces of James Russo, Daniel von Bargen, Tom Petty, Giovanni Ribisi, and Joe Santos, but nobody gets a look in much and the only developed characters are Costner, Tate, Williams, and Patton.Without a doubt, THE POSTMAN has some great cinematography in places, especially in the sweeping vistas and magnificent landscapes it often uses as a backdrop. Yet the special effects are kept to a bare minimum, thus alienating the young thrill-seeking crowd, and after the blood-and-thunder of the likes of Mel Gibson's BRAVEHEART, audiences weren't expecting this off beat, slow-paced and preachy epic. I didn't hate it as much as some, but I did find it hard to keep up the energy of watching it in places. Probably the best aspect of the story is its originality, but this frequently means taking the tale into unsatisfying areas. Not a total failure, but that running time is a real killer for this kind of story.

Any movie based on a successful book never lives up to the book, that said, Kevin Costner never failed to convey the principles laid out in David Brin's excellent novel The Postman about social responsibility and how fragile a thing civilization is. People criticized The Postman simply because the bottom line of it is that you can't wait for someone else to solve your problems for you and that you must consider a greater good beyond yourself and in-turn take the brunt of things on oneself at times. Not a terribly exciting twist I know,but a fundamentally under-realized reality of not just this movie but life itself. When Costner's character first arrives masquerading as a postman on behalf of "The Restored United States" the people of the village bombard him with questions about "the Marines" or "the President" or other institutions in which they'd believed to which he responds by saying "we've all got to do our bit".He begins as an actor drifting from place to place and simply dons the outfit of a postman by chance, invents a back-story to support his new role and goes through the motions of delivering letters in exchange for sustenance i.e food and shelter. He has the initial luck on the way when by chance there just happens to be a letter in his stolen mail bag for someone in the village he arrives at-but not an implausible amount. From this beginning however his example inspires at first one young man who goes on to recruit his friends who now, because of Gordon, have something to believe in. This movie manages to convey a message of hope that one person can change the course of things dramatically by taking responsibility and daring to challenge established sets of values.

The Postman is one of those films that supposedly destroyed an A-listers career.For some reason, Costner has always been a target of critics, and despite the fact that in the early nineties, he was one of the big players thanks to the like of The Bodygaurd, Robin Hood and Dances with Wolves, we all tend to remember him for Waterworld, Wyatt Earp, and this, which is unarguably nothing more than a vanity project for it's star/Director.But i've always been a fan of Costner, and I would watch him in a film where he reads the dictionary..Set three years ago, after war has destroyed most of USA, including the government, a lone drifter is captured by a fascist group called the Holnists led by General Bethlehem.When he escapes, he finds a mail Jeep and uniform, and starts to travel through small cities, telling them he is a postman, a representative of the restored United States.No one believes him at first, but soon he has followers, and they start to prepare a revolt against Holnists.......With this being a post apocalyptic vision of the recent past/future depending on when you actually see the film, I for one was actually surprised as to just how light hearted the film was in some scenes.What Costner has given us is nothing more than Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves meets Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, as The Postman has the same traits and problems as Hood.Now take away Patton (even though he is very good), and add Rickman, I would guarantee that this would have been better received, and more regarded today.I wouldn't have been surprised if the late actor was sent a script, but didn't want to steal the show from Costner yet again.So he escapes from the General, starts a movement, gets injured, spends a winter with Olivia Willaims, and fights some more, until we have a Braveheart type finale.The film is all over the place, Costner clearly believed he had the answers to the meaning of life with this film, and was betting that he would repeat his success with Dances With Wolves.It's not a bad film by any means, it's actually quite entertaining, and my advice is make your own decisions, you will find something to enjoy.Even if it is for all the wrong reasons.