Rating: 
Summary: Actually, more 3.5 stars...
Review: ...or perhaps 3.75 -- I approached this TV version with an open mind. I love the 1965 movie for many reasons, but I'm not fanatic about it. In fact I prefer the novel to either version. But to get back to the TV version -- I was disappointed in Ms. Knightley as Lara, I thought she seemed much too 21st century-London, or something that I just can't express. I just could not believe for a minute that she was a person living in Russia in the early 20th century. This was a major flaw for me. Also, and this is not a jibe at the show, but the sex scenes were kind of explicit, which is definitely not the case in the book! And I cannot figure out why they made Lara & Yuri's child a boy, when in the book she's quite definitely a girl. I have to disagree with the reviewer who said that the music was only serviceable, or something like that; I thought the soundtrack was very good, & very moving. Other than these critical comments, I enjoyed this. But it's still the novel that's the most moving "version" of all.
Rating: 
Summary: After a couple of screenings I found a great surprise....
Review: As a tv production professor I'm one of the freaks that can easily watch a movie or a scene 200 times, break it into pieces and put it up together again. Personally I'm not a big fan of the idea of the remaking of a classic... I see film as art and no one would validate a remaking of Picasso's Guernica. But WBGH Boston and the BBC has a quality trademark that is worth seeing. In my humble opinion the art direction is the star of this film. And into this category the remarkable transformation of one of the characters that was the only one that aged with credibility and seems no one noticed: Misha Gordon, performed by the very young italian actor Daniele Liotti. Searching for more information at the IMDB site I was surprised to find out that Liotti was the lead actor in Spain's Oscar entry for 2001 Mad Love (Juana La Loca). Few times you find an actor with such convincing physical range. Definitively someone to watch.
Rating:
Summary: White Heat
Review: Boris Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago" has at times been mistakenly perceived as a Classic in the same mold as "The Brothers Karamazov" for example. But it isn't and shouldn't be treated as such for it is a popular novel, written in the 1950's. I suppose it has taken on this patina because of the time of its story: the early 1900's in Russia and that it deals with characters who are bigger than life, who love wisely but not well and whose lives take turns based on the pull, not only of nature, but of history.
Director Giacomo Compiotti's PBS version is stellar in many ways: first of all in the Zhivago of Hans Matheson. His is a human, muscular, loving and caring performance not the wooden stoic one of Omar Sharif in the 1965 version. But Keira Knightley is not yet, at this stage of her young career, on the same level as Julie Christie's luminous Lara, though Knightley's Lara definitely has scenes of uncommon grace and humanity.
The 1965 version directed by the sublime David Lean cannot be faulted in the design and implementation of its physical production but this version is noteworthy for its intimate, character driven focus. We get to know and appreciate the characters better here because the story is filmed to fit our televisions screens and must therefore sacrifice the huge vistas for the more intimate settings.
Due to its four-hour running time, we are able to see much more of the Zhivago story and this has its good points as well as its bad. But ultimately this "Dr Zhivago" succeeds because of the goodness of its soul: its golden and autumnal story once again pulls at our heartstrings as well as fascinates our minds.
Rating:
Summary: If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Review: I caught this by accident on PBS and was immediately drawn in. The whole feel of the movie seemed more authenic, especially the WWI front scenes (and excluding the town of Yuriatin- sorry, it is NOT located in the Netherlands, the place should have been completely wooden). Initially, I really liked the casting- Yuri seemed green enough, Lara seemed attractive enough, Komarovsky seemed nasty and slimy enough. It doesnt have the cardboard Hollywood look the older version has. And, having read the book, I can say that it is *far* more faithful to Boris Pasternak.
Buuut.... The whole time I found myself comparing the two film versions in my head, and even with all of its problems, I kept going back to the David Lean version. Look, when you have a cast that consists of Omar Shariff, Rod Steiger, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Alec Guiness, Siobhan McKenna... You know, its kinda hard to improve upon the wheel! In the end, the only performance I truly liked in this one was Sam Neill, who has such an evil persona for whatever reason, I actually hated him in Jurassic Park, he seemed out of character. But again, how can you improve Steiger's Komarovsky? You want to throw him down the stairs just like Yuri!
So, bottom line is: as a film adaptation for die hard Pasternak fans, this is pretty good. Pretty pictures, pretty music, etc. Standing alone as a film, though... I say, stick with the original.
Rating:
Summary: A mini-series version of "Doctor Zhivago" that lacks poetry
Review: I have no inherent objection to a television miniseries version of "Doctor Zhivago," being well aware that Robert Bolt's screenplay for David Lean's 1965 classic film was rather selective and took other liberties with Boris Pasternak's novel. Andrew Davies, who did the script for the 1995 "Pride & Prejudice" mini-series, makes a point of going back and finding new scenes (such as a slightly different set of meetings for Yury and Pasha, and one between Lara and Tonya), and those parts of this 2002 production stand out because they do not invite a comparison to the theatrical film.
The problem with this version of "Doctor Zhivago" is not that it is missing Lean's cinematic eye or Maurice Jarre's evocative score, although this is a problematic element, which I will get back to in a moment. But the main problem is that the two main characters are miscast. Hans Matheson as Yury Zhivago and Keira Knightley as Lara Guishar Antipova are just too young. I can buy Matheson is a young medical student, but never that he has the soul of a great poet behind his young eyes. After Knightley's Lara goes through the horrors of war and the tragedy of romance the last time we see her in the movie all I can think of is that the makeup is not really hiding all of her adolescent skin blemishes.
The rest of the casting is problematic as well. Alexandra Maria Lara's Tonya Gromyko Zhivago is also really young and Sam Neill's Victor Komarovsky might say that he is as bad as Rod Steiger's film version, but I never believe it. The performance I did like was Kris Marshall as Pasha Antipov, which is saying something since I recognized him from "Love Actually" and it took me a while to figure out that the same actor was playing the idealistic revolutionary who becomes the murderous Strelnikov.
The poetry is missing from more than Zhivago's eyes in this version, but then the critical idea of Zhivago being a poet has always been problematic in adapting Pasternak's novel to the screen. In Lean's movie we never hear the poetry, but beyond the look in Omar Sheriff's eyes there was Jarre's music and the beautiful setting ice castle in which he writes the first Lara poem. There is also the look on Julie Christie's face when she reads the poem for the first time. None of that is in this production and since the Russians are making a really long mini-series due out in 2005, I am looking forward to seeing how they solve the problem of representing Zhivago's poetry. Of course, the Russians probably have an advantage in that they know those poems by heart, and can use them like how Shakespeare's sonnets get used in films like "Sense & Sensibility."
At the other end the conflict between Zhivago and the Russian Revolution is missing as well. When Zhivago gets into trouble it is because as a physician he wants to admit that there is cholera epidemic that they should be dealing with instead of pretending it does not exist. Zhivago objects to the bloodshed of the Revolution just as he did of that caused by the war with Germany, but his poet's soul never takes issue with the principles of the Communists. The emphasis is on the romance more than the revolution, with the latter being a recurring impediment to the former, and without the requisite poetry that would have made it all the more compelling. However, Davies and director Giancomo Campiotti ("Il Tempo dell'amore"), do come up with an affective ending that will haunt viewers even if nothing else in this mini-series does.
Rating: 
Summary: DEPRESSING AS IN CONCENTRATION CAMP DEPRESSING
Review: I loved the first two hours of this but the second two were just too depressing and the actors were bogged down in a depressing script. Watching this makes me realize how much better a director David Lean was. His 1965 version had its sappy, Hollywood moments, but his film provides a carthasis at the end when the viewer realizes that Lara and Yuri's child will be watched over by him. The new version with Keira Knightley ends with Lara being arrested and her young child just basically running after her. Sam Neill's star power is sorely missed in the second half. I also did not like how Lara tells Yuri she would still go back to Strelnikov though she knows the guy is a mass murderer! In the Lean film, Julie Christie had an earth mother attitude in the second half. In this version, you really get more irritated with Lara when she carries on with Yuri, knowing that he has a pregnant wife and child. In this version, the wife, father and child are taken away -- to a concentration camp probably in Siberia -- and never heard from again. While I like Keira Knightley, I don't think she was able to deliver that ethereal quality that Christie had which made you believe that three men could be in love with her. At times, Yuri's wife looked just as attractive or more so. I don't think this movie works unless Lara is filmed as absolutely gorgeous and pure. People have long complained that Julie Christie was just too beautiful when the world was totally collapsing around them but it just doesn't seem to make sense otherwise because Lara is supposed to be the object of all these love poems. Keira Knightley's Lara came off as much more lascivious than Christie's. I did not really believe that she and Yuri were so spiritually in love as the Lean film depicts. And then as far as the motherhood thing goes, where is Lara's first child? After she leaves with Victor Komorosky, the daughter is never seen again. This production showed promise, but the second half just falls apart. I think it is very hard to like either Yuri or Lara when they fall into bed so quickly while Tonya is at home -- pregnant -- and doing lots of hard work and raising Yuri's first son.
Rating: 
Summary: my review about the mini series dr. zhivago it rocks.
Review: i really liked watching this flim it totall y touched my heart. and the actors and actresses where really good in this mini series. hans matheson and all the actors gave good performances in this movie. fan , rosiec.
Rating:
Summary: Completelly true romance
Review: I recorded Dr. Zivago when it came out on KCET...and this movie is completely romantic for the people who truely look at the hearth of love... I really recomand this movie for the people who believe that their is always a chance in life to be together with your true love... even if society and time separate you...
Rating:
Summary: Different and better
Review: I saw the David Lean version many years ago and at a much younger age; I remember mostly snow and cold and not really getting it - the great love story. So I watched this version with a largely open, if not blank, mind. It was one of the most moving films I've seen in a number of years. Unlike some other viewers, I did find the music compelling, achingly sad even. And however they did it, the whole cast made me care about them, feel both their passion and pathos. It was indeed a depressing film, but much like the characters in Les Miserables, at least for me, the characters in Zhivago left me moved, touched, and - who knows - perhaps a bit changed by my own experience of the heroism and tragedy of their lives. I never looked here for the wide expanses and scenic vistas of the 1965 version, and so I did not miss them. But one can always hope to be moved, and I was; it seems that that is what film, as art, can most aspire to.
Rating:
Summary: Poignant and stirring adaptation. Highly recommended
Review: I saw the original film version starring Julie Christie and Omar Sharif several years ago as a young girl. I barely remember it so I watched this tv series without anything to compare it to. I am therefore able to review this film based on its own merit and not in comparison to a film done over 20 years ago. Those familiar with the original film and/or the books already know the story. To summarize, the story centers on Yury Zhivago (Hans Matheson of "Mists of Avalon") and Lara Guishar (Keira Knightley of "Bend It Like Beckham," "Pirates of the Caribbean" and the upcoming "King Arthur") - two young people who meet and fall in love during the Russian revolution. Fate takes them through various paths as they are parted and reunited through the course of their lives. The success of this film is due in large part to its wonderful, talented cast; excellent production values; and the outstanding screenplay of Andrew Davies. Those of us who have seen and loved Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle's version of "Pride and Prejudice" and the equally excellent "Middlemarch" and "Wives and Daughters" know Andrew Davies well. He succeeded in bringing those characters to life and does the same in bringing Boris Pasternak's acclaimed work to the modern audience. The excellent casting must also be given credit for this wonderful mini-series (as shown in Masterpiece Theater). Hans Matheson, Keira Knightley and Sam Neill (as Komarovsky) are standouts in this film. Despite their youth, Hans and Keira infuse their characters with much warmth, charisma and passion that truly makes you feel for and with their characters. These young, up-and-coming actors are given roles that stretch their acting muscles and they certainly rise to the challenge. Add to that the fact that they are both beautiful to look at and are a pleasure to watch. In contrast, Sam Neill gives a chilling and memorable portrayal of Komarovsky - the man you love to hate. I suppose the one major advantage of this tv series over the film is that it is able to do justice to the characters. Various plotlines and characterizations are fleshed out. The audience is able to become intimate with the characters - be it Tonya or Sasha or Yury or Lara. The production values are top-notch and comparable to other BBC-produced films. This is a poignant and stirring tale of love won and love lost, betrayal, passion, desire and hate. In addition to this film, the DVD also contains several cast and crew interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. I highly recommend it to fans of the novel and the 1960's film and those who enjoy top-notch British drama.
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