Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing - Not like a Stephen King story.
Review: Although Anthony Hopkins is one of my favourite actors, even he couldn't get this one going for me.
I though the children were good actors, but the story line lacked something. I didn't know anything about this story before watching it ,( I prefer it like that if possible) so went in with an open mind.I appreciate what the story was getting across, but it didn't make particular good viewing. I read the write-up on the back of the DVD and it stated, "it'll grab you...and keep you hooked" I didn't feel this at all. It also calls it a "tear-jearker," didn't agree, ( and I usually cry at anything in films). Disappointed with this film, not what I expected from a combination of Stephen King and Anthony Hopkins.
Rating: 
Summary: Watchable But Disappointing
Review: This is sort of a syrupy nostalgic story. I wasn't convinced by the child actors and constantly felt like they were acting. Hopkins was good as usual but doesn't make the movie believable or interesting by himself. This movie tries hard to tug at your heart strings and make you feel sad you're not eleven years old again, powerless, held down by your totally uncaring mother, subjet to occasional beatings and other violence at the hands of older children, and totally confused. There are some good parts and you will want to see the ending, but there are better vehicles for Hopkins than this.
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable but confusing at times..............
Review: Once again Anthony Hopkins does a wonderful job in this movie. Anton Yelchin (Bobby Garfield) is wonderful.
While I watched this film I could not help but think of two other movies based on Stephen King novels, Stand By Me and The Green Mile. I also had thoughts of A Beautiful Mind. A complete stranger comes to town and changes an 11 year old boys life for the better. You will experience Bobby's first kiss, dealing with bullies, his uninvolved mother, and his questions about his deceased father. You can not help but feel close to Bobby. I was uncertain what was actually happening to Bobby and his ability to read other peoples minds. I kept asking myself, "What is going on here?" The ending does help to explain this.
Over all a very enjoyable movie.
Rating:
Summary: Substandard
Review: I personally was incredibly disapointed with this film. First off, i understand that it is very difficult to write a screenplay based on a Stephen King novel, they are very involved and discriptive. This movie only had a basic skeleton of what actually occured in the book. I think they skipped over very touching parts that should have been included, and i agree with the above reviewers in their thoughts on the low men and such. I was dissapointed to see that absolutely none of the other parts of the book were included, which led to viewers being puzzled as to what was going on. I found it very vague and sappy. I was disapointed to say the least.
Rating: 
Summary: What Might Have Been
Review: Screenwriter William Goldman had quite a challenge adapting the most unusual of Steven King's books to film. King's original is a collection of 5 loosely related stories and only the first (and longest) of these is presented in the film. To make matters more challenging, that particular story is a spin-off from King's Gunslinger series; without knowledge of that series his readers are likely to be scratching their heads in puzzlement. So how to deal with this dilemma? Goldman's answer is to ignore it completely. Only the skeleton of the story Low Men in Yellow Coats remains in the film. Anthony Hopkins' character is no longer a Breaker who escaped from the world of the Dark Tower and the thrall of the Crimson King; now he is merely a psychic from our own world. The Low Men have inexplicably doffed their Yellow Coats in favor of dark suits (did they have their colors done and discover that they aren't Warm Spring?). More importantly, rather than being hideously evil supernatural demons who only temporarily wear a human disguise, they are hideously evil humans, er, I mean, they are FBI guys, sorta...(Hopkins only says "something like that" and we learn nothing more.) Those elements that made such a strange, bizarre and consequentially intriguing story have been stripped away from the film. The climactic scene in which the protagonist is captured by the Low Men in Yellow Coats is missing entirely. Instead, except for a few moments, it is an almost gentle coming-of-age story. Without considering the original, the movie is an effective piece of work, with excellent performances by the child actors Anton Yelchin and Mika Boorem, and a somewhat disengaged reading by Hopkins. But given that his character was written (in the script, not the book) as disengaged, it's hard to know what else he could have done--although his mumbling often had me wondering exactly what he'd just said. Honestly, Goldman was not at the top of his form. The last lines sound like words of wisdom--"There was an enduring gift Ted gave me. What he did was open my eyes and let the future in..." But what do they actually mean? What child does not, at some point, open his eyes to the future? Is this such a special gift, the loss of innocence? I'm baffled, and frankly disappointed. One final note for you music buffs--composer Mychael Danna makes a clever allusion to the love theme from Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet in the scene on the Ferris Wheel, when the hero's first kiss occurs.
Rating:
Summary: I'm just not sure what this was supposed to be about
Review: I thought this movie was going to be something like the book The Giver, I don't know why, but I did. Well, it's not, at least, not really. Synopsis:
One of Bobby Garfield's (adult Bobby played by David Morse) childhood friends dies and Bobby goes to the funeral. As a result he finds out that his childhood sweetheart has also passed away. In reminiscing he returns to his childhood home and remembers... On Bobby Garfield's (young Bobby played by Anton Yelchin) 11th birthday, Ted Brautigan (played by Anthony Hopkins) moves in. Bobby and his mother Liz (played by Hope Davis) are without a father/husband in the home as he passed away when Bobby was 5. Ted is on the run from the FBI or aliens or someone because of his psychic abilities and is hiding out with the Garfield's. Well, Bobby and Ted hit it off and Ted becomes something like a father/grandfather figure for Bobby. Bobby, with Ted's help, ends up having a successful summer of sorts by beating up the local bully (who isn't incorporated very well into the movie) and kissing Carol Gerber (played by Mika Boorem). At the end of the summer, Liz turns Ted in and he is captured by whoever is following him. Then Liz and Bobby move away. ...Return to Present, Bobby runs into Carol's daughter Molly and gives her a picture of her mother. Movie ends. My Comments:
The story doesn't make much sense in a logical fashion and a lot of things are kind of left unresolved. We never really find out what was going on with Ted Brautigan nor do we find out what happened to him. Bobby didn't keep in touch with Carol and is stunned to find out she has died. Liz Garfield is raped by her boss and nothing is really said of it. I guess this is supposed to represent real life in a sense, but I'm not quite sure it works to tell a coherent story. Overall, though I was entertained, I was also baffled. When the movie ended I asked my wife, "What was that?" We didn't really have much of an answer for it. Though there were some very endearing moments in the movie, it also left you kind of wondering what we were supposed to get from it. For the good acting, especially by the young Bobby and Carol, I'm giving it 3/5, but the story just doesn't make all that much sense.
Rating:
Summary: Predictable, but enjoyable
Review: This film, based on the book by Stephen King, tells the story of the summer in which 11-year-old Bobby Garfield (Anton Yelchin) loses his childhood innocence, gaining introduction to the mystery, melancholy, and disillusionment of adulthood. The mystery is supplied by Ted Brautigan (Anthony Hopkins), the upstairs boarder with a psychic gift and a fear of the 'low men' who are hunting him. The disillusionment comes from his own mother (Hope Davis), a struggling single woman whose dreams are rather cruelly crushed in the course of the film. This film revisits territory mapped out in a previous film based on a King story, "Stand By Me," in which the idyllic world of youth, marked by standard childhood preoccupations (friends, a new bike) and terrors (the neighborhood bully) is invaded by the macabre or supernatural, which stands for the unknowns of the wider world. King has used this device repeatedly and effectively. Played by a gifted cast, it works again here, although it offers few surprises. Brautigan's psychic power is handled in a low-key manner, which has frustrated some reviewers. However, the should remember that this film is really about Bobby and Ted's ability is a device by which the filmmakers show Bobby's maturation.
Rating:
Summary: Emotional but Cryptic
Review: I found that the coming-of-age theme in his movie came across very touchingly in thi movie... I have to admit I cried at the end. The boy who plays the lead role, Bobby, is a great actor, and his relationships with Carol, Ted, and his mother were well developed and interesting. However, there are so many unanswered questions(just like "Mothman Prophecies")! At times the movie seemed like a drama and other times like a supernatural thriller. Which is it???
Rating:
Summary: Very enjoyable little film........
Review: With 'little' not being a derogatory adjective. This is a 'little' story lifted from a larger Stephen King project, a tale that is altered a 'little' bit by William Goldman and Scott Hicks, and is presented as a 'little' slice of the growing up years of a young boy, Bobby Garfield (Anton Yelchin) in a Connecticut town (though filmed in Virginia). I call the film 'little' because even though told in flashback from the memories of the now grown-up Bobby (David Morse) it is about just a little bit of the summer of his 11th birthday and we, the viewers, get to sneak a peek at that precious time in Bobby's life. The acting however, is anything but little. Anton Yelchin is a seasoned actor, able to bring out the best of his role. In direct comparison, Anton makes the acting abilities of Haley Joel Osment appear one-dimensional. However, the role of Carol did not pale in comparison as Mika Booren was more than able to hold her own. Add the grand acting abilities and screen presence of Anthony Hopkins (Ted Brautigan) and you have a cast of extraordinary artists helping to make this little movie into a very enjoyable film. David Morse and Hope Davis (Bobby's mother) carry their roles equally well. If nothing else, one should consider purchasing the DVD for the interview of Anthony Hopkins by Scott Hicks. Not only do you learn something about the changes made from King's original novel, but more importantly you get to hear Anthony Hopkins discuss his evolution as an actor and treasured little memories from his childhood all wrapped up with admiration for the youngsters starring in the film and presented with a genuine humility you just would not expect from this extraordinarily talented man. I love him in everything he does, but I believe he brings a special charm and presence to his smaller more personable roles, such as in this film and in 'The Mask of Zorro'. I listened to the unabridged edition of Stephen King's original novel 'Hearts In Atlantis' narrated by William Hurt. While certainly not my favorite King novel, it was a very, very good large tale told through five intertwined short stories. That is really why the movie 'Hearts In Atlantis' seems little to me, because I recognize it as a little cherished piece of a larger, more comprehensive and detailed story, but it is an important and sweet little piece. Not about the war, not about college, not about the big world, just about Bobby-O's little world the last summer of his childhood. About his loneliness, his self-absorbed mother, his dear childhood sweetheart Carol, and the wonderful bond he builds with Ted Brautigan, a father-figure sorely needed in Bobby's small bittersweet world, as well as a window through which Bobby catches a glimpse of a few harsher truths outside his 11-year-old world. Having read many of these reviews, I believe I have what appears to be quite a novel idea; why not treat yourself, don't be stingy with yourself, this situation doesn't call for an 'instead of' decision. Read/listen to King's five stories, for you will enjoy them,......AND watch the film. Think of them as two individual and separate works of entertainment able to provide pleasure rather than two works that MUST be compared with one found wanting or 'less than'.....the book has all the details, but it certainly doesn't have the presence of the cast....the movie may be missing a few details and have a few changes, but it exudes the small-town atmosphere and it has Anthony Hopkins. Indulge yourself and be twice entertained.
Rating:
Summary: A Fine Piece Of Work From Hopkins
Review: A very good job by one of the great ones.....Anthony Hopkins does a wonderful job as Ted Brautigan interacting with 11-year-old Bobby Garfield, played quite well by Anton Yelchin. The nostalgic narration of the people, places, and times where 3 childhood friends grew up is extremely well done. It's a good coming-of-age story with a regular series of moments when his selfish mother, played by Hope Davis, infuriates anyone who has ever experienced any kind of competent parenting. There are lots of good moments in this one. Lots of reasons to take the time to enjoy it. And lots of places where you can easily engage in the lives of the characters.
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