Rating: 
Summary: War movie of the year
Review: Cold Mountain is the best war movie of the year!What a powerful cast.Oscar nominee Jude Law,Oscar winner Nicole Kidman and Renée Zellweger in her Oscar winning role as Ruby. Jude Law's character name is W.P.Inman a wounded soldier embarks on a perilous journey back to Cold Mountain. While Nicole Kidman's character is a young belle and her name is Ada Monroe.While Renée Zellwger's character:Ruby Thewes a drifter helps Ada (Nicole Kidman)survive in the Civil War.
Rating: 
Summary: Well Paced Storytelling
Review: COLD MOUNTAIN is a well-paced story of the Southern home front and one man's fight to return from the battlefield in this romantic Civil War tale. The story ranges from romantic imagery to a sense of mysticism in its telling. The initial focus is set in a brief but impress Battle of Petersburg, better known as the "battle of the crater," in 1864. The film then focuses on the climatic convergence of its central characters. This is a film that truly relies on its juxtaposition of panoramic and intimate images to convey the emotion of its story.
Rating:
Summary: Scattered Return to Cold Mountain
Review: It's really difficult to review this film -- critics and reviewers have been almost unanimous in praising the well-crafted, old-fashioned filmmaking but pointed out the movie somehow fell apart due to its episodic structure, which made it messy and scattered. These claims are basically justified, but "Cold Mountain" still has so many good things in it that it would be unwise not to recommend it.As far as filmmaking is concerned, "Cold Mountain" has indeed not left much to be desired. Cinematography, acting performances, script teeming with touching moments, editing and music are top-notch. The music was produced by T-Bone Burnett (with credits for Jack White, Sting and Alison Krauss, among others), who was behind the phenomenal success of "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack. "Cold Mountain" at times even formally reminds us of 'Brother' -- an escape odyssey through the American South. As for the story, love at first sight thriving despite the horrible Civil War damaging the South is truly a viewer-luring and award-enticing concept and so it proved to be already with "Gone With The Wind". This time however, the romance rings true and promises to equal those great movie love stories only in the initial part of the film -- by the time Inman (Jude Law) kisses Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman) goodbye in a pre-war rush, the love is full-blown. Kidman is probably miscast as inexperienced town girl Ada, well-educated but thoroughly unprepared for living on a country farm on her own. Helped out she is by a no-nonsense country girl Ruby Thewes (Renee Zellweger in a dynamic, Oscar-winning performance, sporting great southern accent). Jude Law again confirms himself as one of the leading and most talented actors of his generation. The bulk of the film we see him coming home, weary and wounded, from the battlefield, risking his life as a deserted soldier. During its course, the film's many episodes, often very cruel and violent, depict the ultimate futility of war, which somehow takes emphasis off the romance. One might be inclined to agree it was done on purpose -- the war usually destroys the human relations -- but the reunion and bitter-sweet ending indicate that the director Anthony Minghella really aimed to keep romance up in front. It's not that Law and Kidman do not fit together well. Maybe the war really changed their characters so much... The movie's chief idea is that life is always worth living despite all odds you meet on the way. Condemning the war similarly as the profound "English Patient", the hope and consolation, nevertheless, get an upper hand in the "Cold Mountain". Had the romance been as involving as that in "The English Patient" (although you could be repulsed by adulterous relationship there), the movie could match its predecessor's nine Oscars.
Rating: 
Summary: Chick flick with blood and guts
Review: I expected more because good reviews. My wife liked the film, I thought it approached the level of a TV melodrama. I've concluded it was the chick flick elements in the film that drew her. What's wrong with the film:
1) Too many epsisodes of over stereotyped evil characters doing hideous things to others - approaches banality.
2) Significant and compelling dialogue missing.
3) Nicole Kidman couldn't find her character. Was she a shy youth or the refined daughter of an erudite pastor? Whatever it was she did to try and combine these elements didn't work. What's right with the file:
1) Renee Zellweger's performance of a country bumpkin was outstanding, probably making the film worth seeing because of it alone.
2) Timeless story line of love searching for fulfillment. Summary: Too many blood and guts scenes for a chick flick, but didn't rise above that genre's level of serious commentary besides lacking its fun and humor.
Rating:
Summary: Flawed, but Still Beautiful.
Review: Well, I liked this movie.
Many have written that it's about Confederates, and to hell with them and their war-suffering - they were cruel and evil, etc. I never understand this viewpoint.
Confederates and others have been wrong and still had deeply moving, interesting lives. In fact their fallability and loss at being decieved and dedicated to the wrong side of historic events, makes them more sympathetic to me.
If you want to root for the goodguys there are a thousand films out there. The suffering of a losing army in any war is vastly greater than that of the victors, and those broken soldiers have often have stories that are more worthwhile.
After all, they didn't necessarily choose their side of the war. Their town was on in a certain area, and the leaders of the region declared war. They had no options. As for the film, I thought the plot was thin on dialogue and was sometimes a bit flat, but Jude Law and Nicole are like walking poetry. Seeing the light in their eyes - words were unnecessary. The plot pulled them together in a sort of relentless call-to-romance which I thought was beautiful and haunting, where all outside events fell away around the hope of seeing their missing suitor. They were instant soulmates, like Romeo and Juliet. The fact that we imagine it and shows how such deams can inhabit the human spirit. Very few movies can convey this to the audience - it's an innaccessible emotional place which directors can reach. Minghella has attempted it here and it worked on me. I recommend this movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't be fooled...
Review: Don't be fooled by the seemingly limitless praise this film is getting...it is trash! I'm sure it's one of the few films to deal with the Civil War but to not feature one (yes ONE) main or supporting player who's black. Number 2, isn't Nicole Kidman just exquisite looking despite the fact that she's going without during this time period (not to mention the fact that she's 15yrs too old to play the part like she does). Number 3, Law and Kidman have as much chemistry as oil & water. No.4, this movie makes no mention of why the Civil War was even fought, insisting by its ignorance that the Civil War's raison d'etre was to provide a sweeping backdrop to two duped-up southerners. Oh, and speaking of that, this film concerns SOUTHERN CONFEDERATES, which is fine if the movie made a point to explore this particular/perculiar position, which it doesn't. Just imagine a "Love Story/EPIC" (as CM is called)involving two Nazis during WWII at a camp where the story focuses on the love between the two German Nazis, completely ignoring the Jews & Gypsies being burned and experimented on in the background. Now, you'd call that film terrible for having the gall to not deal with a central issue (the victims of WWII), yet with Cold Mountain, you're asked to champion such ignorance. Oh, and if the cinematography was anymore picturesque you'd expect the words "Hallmark proudly presents" to flash across the screen. Cold Mountain is the type of Hollywood film which went out of fashion for a reason: it's politically naive, historically prudent, emotionally immature, insensitive to the civil rights' movements & the women's movements. Oh, and it features an albino who does backflips off of horses before killing people. (WHY???) All of Minghella's films are flawed to be sure, but this one most of all. Here, he's succeeded in making the stupidist (yet most gluttonous) Epic/Love Story that's about as involving and inspired as a trip to a tax auditor. (The one star is for Natalie Portman whose performance is the only watchable thing in this vomit-inducing film.)
Rating:
Summary: The Best !!
Review: I loved this movie! I have experienced love like that and it was good to see it on film. My husband and I loved each other at first sight and it was perfect. He went to Iraq and it was the hardest thing I've ever been through, not knowing if he would come home to me. This movie touched my heart, reminded me of new love, and made me appreciate even more that my husband came home safe. I can't wait for the DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Emotionally Cold Mountain
Review: This story of one man's walk from Virginia to North Carolina in his attempt to return to the love that motivates him has - unsurprisingly - a somewhat rambling form. Somehow I think the rambling and episodic structure was probably better suited to a novel than to a mainstream Hollywood film. In part "Cold Mountain" is based on Homer's Odyssey, with Jude Law as the Ulysses-like Inman, and Nicole Kidman's Ada Monroe as the Penelope who waits for him despite the attention of at least one highly unsuitable suitor. The film's set before and during the American Civil War, and begins with a devastating battle in Petersburg, Virginia. Troops from the Northern Army mine the Southern front line. The resulting explosions demolish it to great effect, but all doesn't go according to plan, as the advancing Northern soldiers are caught in the crater made by their own explosions ... and mown down. That scene is writer / director Anthony Minghella's version of "Saving Private Ryan's" opening scene, and very much shows us that the movie isn't going to be about the glories of war. "Cold Mountain" gets off to an excellent start, inter-cutting gritty battle scenes with Inman's memories of Ada, the woman he loves, and with whom he's shared little more than one hurried kiss. Ada is the daughter of Reverend Monroe, played by Donald Sutherland, and has received a fairly good education in Charleston. That means she hasn't learned how to do much of anything practical. Inman, after suffering a bad neck wound, decides he is going to return to Ada whatever the cost, deserts the army, and begins his long trek back to North Carolina and Cold Mountain. Ada meanwhile is having to cope with the death of her father, the difficulty of surviving as a single woman, and the attentions of lecherous bad guy and home guardsman Teague, played by Ray Winstone. Her neighbours, including Sally Swanger (the excellent Kathy Baker) try to help her, but it becomes pretty clear she's not going to make it through the next winter without help, and that help turns up in the shape of the extremely practical and down to earth backwoods girl Ruby Thewes (Rene Zellwegger) Although the film starts superbly, it gradually becomes disappointing. The grittiness of the beginning gives way to ever more Hollywood glamour as the movie goes on, particularly in the story of Kidman's Ada. Kidman gets prettier and prettier as times get harder and harder. Zellwegger comes on like Doris Day in "Annie Get Your Gun" or something out of "Oklahoma", and adds scrunched up funny faces to the mix. And the bad guys back at home turn into cardboard villains that might almost come from a spaghetti western, particularly the almost albino Bosie (Charlie Hunnam). And why are albinos always evil in movies? Inman's story fares somewhat better. During his trek he encounters a variety of picaresque characters. There's a preacher (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) who is initially about to murder his pregnant black mistress when Inman stops him. Jena Malone plays a girl who operates a ferry boat that will allow them to escape their pursuers, if they pay her enough. Giovanni Ribisi is hillbilly Junior, who in another nod to the Odyssey, lives with a bevy of sex-starved siren-like women. Natalie Portman is Sara, a single mother who Inman sleeps beside and then has to rescue from the attention of marauding Southern soldiers. And there's a strange gipsy woman who - particularly given that much of the movie was shot in Romania - seems rather like a refugee from one of the old universal werewolf movies. John Seale's cinematography captures the din of war, the stunning scenery of Romania, and the quieter interiors, well. And, visually the film is helped much by the production design of Dante Ferretti, although I wonder if sometimes that too isn't a little too pretty. There's some good music, although the best of it is performed within the film, old American hymns, and folk music such as "Wayfaring Stranger". There's even a song composed by Sting and sung by Alison Krauss, which works better than one might expect it to. Gabriel Yared's more thematic soundtrack music seems rather less memorable. Ultimately, "Cold Mountain" is marred by several weaknesses, one of the worst is that in its conclusion it's something of a shaggy dog story. It also suffers, like some of Minghella's other films, from a strange emotional coldness: neither Jude Law nor Nicole Kidman touches us as much as they should. Often the emotions surrounding the cameo characters are far more intense, particularly those played by Nathalie Portman and Kathie Baker. But this is nothing new for Minghella. In both "The English Patient" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley" you wanted to feel somewhat more emotional about the characters than you actually did. In his first film "Truly, Madly Deeply" director Anthony Minghella struck a wonderfully poignant emotional note. With the move to Hollywood his films to have become much more focussed on about surfaces or spectacle, and that's a pity. Like "Legends of the Fall" Cold Mountain" is ultimately an attempt to transform a sweeping and often gritty historical novel into a movie that's just far more glamorous than it should be for its own good. It's an interesting movie, but not a wholly successful one.
Rating:
Summary: A movie about the civil war that doesn't focus on slavery
Review: This movie made me very emotional, and whenever a movie does that, I know it's done its job. It was toted as war movie for the guys, a romance for the girls, but really it was neither. Really, it was a movie about loss and faith and how horrible humans can become in the midst of war. Certainly at this time this movie is more relevant than ever. I cried at least three times during this movie, and a little more afterward. It is honestly one of the most depressing things I have ever seen, but I still hold onto it and feel it was necessary to see.
One of the things I liked about its focus. It didn't focus on slavery and it didn't focus of relatives who went to different sides during the war. In fact, we barely met a Union soldier, and when we did, they seemed no different from the confederate. Neither side was lionized becuase in many ways, they were both very much the same. The focus of the movie was on the struggle for survival in a period where killing is condoned and death is everywhere and how it can corrupt people. It was very much like The Iliad in this respect, only not so much on the battlefield.
My problems with the film (in other words, why it didn't get a five) were a) the fact that neither Ada or Ruby both looked like they were all geared up for the red carpet make up wise through out the entire film and b) Jude Law's character needs some more development! This movie will stick with me because it had a powerful message and wasn't afraid to show it.
Rating:
Summary: The American Patient?
Review: The same crew that brought us "The English Patient" brings us "Cold Mountain," for better or worse. There is a similar gauzy look and air of unreality about the film. That doesn't diminish some fine acting, especially from Renee Zellweger.
You've probably already heard that she steals the film, but that's not quite so. There are fine supporting performances, notably from Donald Sutherland, as her soon-to-expire dad. The film is faithful to the plot of the book, except in the portrayal of Inman (Jude Law) who is mature, competent, and enigmatic in print but a bumbling, callow youth on-screen. Still, except for the director and producers seeing a need to beat everyone to death with "war is bad, war is bad" rather than leave Charles Frazier's accurate history intact, the plot is gripping. On the whole, a good, albeit not great film. See it, but no need to rush to do so.
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