This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Thanks for the memories!

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Excellent, smart action film.

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.

I had just finished reading Oliver Twist and this was the first adaptation(apart from the musical) that I had watched. The changes to the series that were not in the book were not to annoying although I think they could have done Bill's death the same as the book. The acting was fine and I really enjoyed Fagin having that Jewish accent as in the book, exactly how I pictured Fagin when reading it. Oliver and Dodger worked well together, the scenery and the feel of a Victorian London was believable and all in all, I did enjoy watching this adaption of Oliver Twist.It will be interesting to see other versions of this novel and use this BBC interpretation as the benchmark.

I feel sorry for anyone who makes his first acquaintance with Dickens' classic through this ill-conceived version that tampers irreparably with the original story.The first mistake was hiring a screenwriter best-known for work on a British soap to write the script. She felt obligated to make it more "hip" by inserting words and dialog that aren't appropriate to the time period, and by completely twisting parts of the plot and some of its main characters. For instance, the comic subplot of Bumble and Corny leaves out some of the best scenes, and instead "sexes up" the Widow Corny. And Oliver himself is changed from a lost innocent into a smart-mouthed punk. (PS - I know that Corny is spelled with an "e" but IMDb's spell- checker keeps changing it.)The casting doesn't help. Timothy Spall, who is wonderful in almost everything he does, never seems to settle in to the character of Fagin, and the make-up and hair artists make him look like an ugly fat woman most of the time. Nancy has changed color, Bill Sykes is nothing more than a yobbo, not the looming villain so well-portrayed by Oliver Reed in the musical version. Even the reliable Edward Fox turns in a two-dimensional performance as Brownlow.The music score is also horrendous, jumping from style to style but never anything remotely Victorian. (Electric guitar? Banjo? Steel drums?)I don't have a problem with making new versions of classics. I also don't have a problem with updating classics, as in WEST SIDE STORY or even Baz Luhrman's ROMEO + JULIET. But what we have in OLIVER TWIST is a warped classic, a hack's idea of making a great plot more palatable for the 21st-century audience. You can change the ambiance or the costumes, but don't give us a new story and claim it's a classic. This type of bilge is running rampant in current British productions (Wuthering Heights, Marple, etc.). Seek out an older version for something that resembles the original, or at least holds the original in high regard. The director and screenwriter for this production obviously see Dickens as raw material to be improved upon. The joke is on them.

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.