 If critics have a complaint against Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain -- and several have none at all -- it's that it may be too beautiful for it's own good. Marc Caro in the Chicago Tribune, for example, says that the film looks "gift wrapped." Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News elaborates this way: "Minghella has certainly mounted a gorgeous movie and the battle scenes are brutally spectacular. But overall, Cold Mountain is like a fine piece of hand-crafted leather, where the stitching shows its quality. That looks good on a handbag, not so good on the big screen." Nevertheless, the film is attracting much praise. John Anderson writes in Newsday: "That the film Cold Mountain is so much better than the best-selling Charles Frazier novel makes it quite the rare thing -- only The Godfather comes immediately to mind as an example of a major movie that so surpasses its source material." Lou Lumenick in the New York Post calls it "exquisitely crafted" and compares it favorably with another civil war movie, Gone With the Wind. Likewise Mike Clark in USA Today comments that it is "the equal of any Civil War movie ever made." Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times writes that "it evokes a backwater of the Civil War with rare beauty" and awards it three stars but questions whether the Frazier novel really lends itself to a movie adaptation. |
