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St. Ives
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment // R // September 11, 2001
List Price: $32.99 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
Robert Louis Stevenson's St. Ives is the melodramatic tale of Jacques St. Ives (Jean Marc Barr), a French officer whose capture by the British during the Napoleonic Wars leads to him falling in love, becoming a fugitive, and discovering the long-lost secrets of his past. Running exactly 90 minutes, St. Ives feels like a made-for-television special, despite being presented as a film.
St. Ives could have been a light-hearted tale of adventure, with colorful characters having exciting escapades. Unfortunately, director Harry Hook's handling of this story results in a film that's fundamentally just not interesting. I haven't read the novel that the film is based on, but I'm willing to bet that the fault for the film's insipidity lies with the filmmakers' handling of the source material, not with the quality of the original novel, which was written by the author of such classics as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Kidnapped, and Treasure Island.
At the start of the film, we're thrown right into the life of the character St. Ives. The pacing is very hectic (but we've only got 90 minutes! no time to spare for character development!), and the first half of the movie plays out like a collection of randomly connected episodes featuring St. Ives. We eventually get some sort of a plot, though not a very interesting one, but the film never gives a reason why the viewer should care about St. Ives in the least. I never did care one whit about St. Ives or what was going to happen to him, or any of the other characters in the film, either. St. Ives' love interest Flora (Anna Friel), her aunt (Miranda Richardson), and the British major in charge of the prison camp (Richard E. Grant) are all equally trapped by the uninspired script and directing. The characters go through the motions that the plot requires for superficially plausible reasons (well, sometimes), but they're not convincing in the least. The sad result is that never, at any time during the movie, do I care in the least what happens to these people.
Is it a drama? A comedy? Hook seems to be trying to cover all his bases. The phrase "jack of all trades, master of none" comes to mind, because St. Ives ends up not working as either of these. The drama falls flat because the characters are uninteresting, the acting is over-the-top, and the situations are contrived. The humorous elements in the film aren't any more successful than the dramatic ones. In a particularly bad move, the character of the British major seems to have been designated as the comic foil of St. Ives. It doesn't work; his misadventures seem pointless and stupid rather than funny.
Picture
St. Ives is presented in a 1.85:1 widescreen anamorphic transfer, with an acceptably low level of noise. Colors, however, are simply awful: they're much too bright and garish, from skin colors to clothing to the unnaturally-vividly-green grass. Contrast is OK in well-lit scenes, but doesn't look that great in darker scenes.
Sound
The DVD case claims that St. Ives has Dolby 2.0 surround, but I can't say as I heard any surround effects whatsoever. Overall, the sound quality isn't terrible, but it's not particularly clear, either; dialogue sounds somewhat muffled.
Extras
A bunch of trailers for other Miramax movies are included. This was probably the best part of the DVD.
Final thoughts
I'm normally enthusiastic about historically-based movies, even flawed ones. St. Ives is more than flawed; it's dull and insipid. It didn't hold my interest, and in fact never caught it in the first place. Don't bother with it.
St. Ives could have been a light-hearted tale of adventure, with colorful characters having exciting escapades. Unfortunately, director Harry Hook's handling of this story results in a film that's fundamentally just not interesting. I haven't read the novel that the film is based on, but I'm willing to bet that the fault for the film's insipidity lies with the filmmakers' handling of the source material, not with the quality of the original novel, which was written by the author of such classics as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Kidnapped, and Treasure Island.
At the start of the film, we're thrown right into the life of the character St. Ives. The pacing is very hectic (but we've only got 90 minutes! no time to spare for character development!), and the first half of the movie plays out like a collection of randomly connected episodes featuring St. Ives. We eventually get some sort of a plot, though not a very interesting one, but the film never gives a reason why the viewer should care about St. Ives in the least. I never did care one whit about St. Ives or what was going to happen to him, or any of the other characters in the film, either. St. Ives' love interest Flora (Anna Friel), her aunt (Miranda Richardson), and the British major in charge of the prison camp (Richard E. Grant) are all equally trapped by the uninspired script and directing. The characters go through the motions that the plot requires for superficially plausible reasons (well, sometimes), but they're not convincing in the least. The sad result is that never, at any time during the movie, do I care in the least what happens to these people.
Is it a drama? A comedy? Hook seems to be trying to cover all his bases. The phrase "jack of all trades, master of none" comes to mind, because St. Ives ends up not working as either of these. The drama falls flat because the characters are uninteresting, the acting is over-the-top, and the situations are contrived. The humorous elements in the film aren't any more successful than the dramatic ones. In a particularly bad move, the character of the British major seems to have been designated as the comic foil of St. Ives. It doesn't work; his misadventures seem pointless and stupid rather than funny.
Picture
St. Ives is presented in a 1.85:1 widescreen anamorphic transfer, with an acceptably low level of noise. Colors, however, are simply awful: they're much too bright and garish, from skin colors to clothing to the unnaturally-vividly-green grass. Contrast is OK in well-lit scenes, but doesn't look that great in darker scenes.
Sound
The DVD case claims that St. Ives has Dolby 2.0 surround, but I can't say as I heard any surround effects whatsoever. Overall, the sound quality isn't terrible, but it's not particularly clear, either; dialogue sounds somewhat muffled.
Extras
A bunch of trailers for other Miramax movies are included. This was probably the best part of the DVD.
Final thoughts
I'm normally enthusiastic about historically-based movies, even flawed ones. St. Ives is more than flawed; it's dull and insipid. It didn't hold my interest, and in fact never caught it in the first place. Don't bother with it.
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