The Cider House Rules

Rating:
Summary: A very well done movie
Review: The Cider House Rules is a very well done movie .Michael Caine is simply excellent.Tobey Maguire shows in this movie that he has deeply improved since Pleasantville.Charlize Theron is really a pleasant surprise in the new Hollywood panorama.She is the living proof that some top models can become little by little very good actresses.As far as the themes of incest and abortion are concerned ,I partly agree with those reviewers who criticize the scarce deepening of these two important problems,but I also think that their investigation is not always strictly necessary In my opinion there are in this movie other very important themes.For example:is it really important to follow absurd rules?(Those written on the sheet of paper).Is it wise for us to stay in a comfortable place for a long time without seeing anything else in our life?And besides don't you find that Homer has been somewhat ungrateful towards his "creator"Dr.Larch?I mean,according to me he left him too soon,after all,Homer's new life is not exactly Pleasantville.

Rating:
Summary: Best movie ever made
Review: This is the most excellent movie ever made. I have to say John Irving's script captured the book in it's entirety. Michael Caine and Tobey Maguire's acting is both exquisite and masterful. The movie made me laugh, cry, and overall give a new meaning to the word filmmaking. Excellent.

Rating:
Summary: "The Cider House Rules" has many good dimensions.
Review: "The Cider House Rules" starring Tobey Maguire as Homer Welles, an orphan that is pushed to become a doctor like his seregate father played by Michael Caine is well acted and an interesting character study. It involves some touchy topics such as rape and abortion but director Lasse Hallstrom handles the film with a delicate hand and never undermines the characters or their emotions. Homer falls for Charlize Theron's character (who wouldn't?) and he leaves the only home he has ever known. He enjoys his life outside of the New England orphanage and belives he is making something for himself. "The Cider House Rules" won Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Michael Caine). For a well written, touching love story try "The Cider House Rules".

Rating:
Summary: Pretty but hollow
Review: Read a few pages of John Irving's wonderful novel The Cider House Rules and you may decide that novel is not worth reading. The reason why the book as a whole was such a success is the familiarity the reader builds over 718 pages. The quirks of its many characters, the acute sense of time and place, its many subplots and sly observations about human nature and self-rightousness. This is precisely why Lasse Hallstrom's gently charming film is essentially a failure, it is impossible to adapt such a sprawling novel into the movie without either having an atrociously long running time or making the whole thing into a fast paced incomprehensible mess. The screenplay by Irving himself leaves out a lot of the book (most distressingly the colorful, butch and gripping character of Melony), yet still fails to be an adequate adaptation for the screen. The film feels like what it really is, a large work of literature compressed and condensed into a small number of scenes, themes are lost and charcaters distilled.

For those of you who haven't read the book, the film is still annoyingly thin, never really discussing the issues it raises, all the performances (with the exception of Michael Caine) hardly register. Yes it looks gorgeous and the kids are cute(a little too cute), but does this supposed coming of age tale amount to anything? Not really.

Arguably the most bizzare Oscar nomination of the nineties must be that of Best Director for Lasse Hallstrom. There is a pretty thick line between being subtle and doing absolutly nothing, and his direction here is straight forward its virtually non-existant, which is partially responsible for the film's unclear message. Considering that the academy ignored a pair of spectacular directing jobs by David Russel for Three Kings and Daivid Fincher for Fight Club this is unforgivable. Crazier still is John Irving's oscar win for the script, as it is far from being cinematic, but degenerates into an arbitrary series of events touching the bases but never exploring similar events in the novel.

To be honest, I've given much better films (like Snow Falling on Cedars) the same 3 star I awarded this one becuase I can't get myself to give it the dismissive 2 stars. Take my 3 stars as a weak reccomendation for a rental. Watching this film is a pleasent experience, but when you get right down to it, its also an empty one.

Rating:
Summary: Dreadfully overated
Review: The Cider House Rules is not so much a good film as it a well marketed film. Released at Christmas time with massive publicity by Miramax, this is a totally average film that audiences just lapped up.

Michael Caine plays a mild mannered doctor who is also the head of a New England orphanage. The films driving force lies between the relationship of Caine and Tobey Maguire, an orphan of his. As Tobey grows, Caine teaches him how to be a doctor. Caine also notices that Maguire has an uncharacteristically good relationship with the other orphans, very Father like.

As Maguire grows he longs to experince life away from the orphanage. He discovers romance while assuming a job as an apple picker. Along the way he is caught in a web of secrets and lies involving his new co-workers (Delroy Lindo doing a bad job.)

There are, I suppose several surprises to The Cider House Rules. None of them are particularly earth shattering but I will not spoil them anyway.

That just about sums up the general idea to The Cider House Rules.When it ended I was forced to ask myself why so many people liked this film? The answer lies in the same reason so many embraced The Green Mile. "Cider House," like The Green Mile is a cliche ridden movie that manipulates the audience throughout. It has a warm fuzzy feeling to it that is the type of thing that mainstream audiences seem to love.

Unfortunately I found that the movie was dull, boring and uninspired. Caine is good but not Oscar worthy and everything about this film is totally average.

I especially despised the "Kings of New England" line that was repeated throughout by Michael Caine. I can just picture someone thinking, "OK I need a great line here that this movie will be remmebered by." This is the result and it is garbage.

Totally average and falsely moving. Sorry if you disagree.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Film
Review: A very good peice of filmmaking, filled with wonderful cinematography and superb performances. Maguire once again proves that he is one of the most talented actors of his generation. Caine is superb as Dr. Larch, however I was not dissapointed with the Academy's decision for best picture. Cider House was a truly good film, but I wasn't as impressed as I was with Mr. Mendes' film. I liked this movie very much, but as for saying,"It should have won best picture" I strongly disagree. American Beauty was the first best picture winner, since Schindler's list, that I have agreed with the Academy.

Rating:
Summary: A Moving Motion Picture with an all-star cast.
Review: The Cider House Rules is a beautiful film that I recommend everyone should see. It has great actors, an awesome screenplay and a great director. Lasse Hallstrom does it again, thank God.

The film follows the story of Homer Wells (Tobey Maguire - Pleasantville) a young man who has just left his home-like orphanage to explore the world with a couple (Charlize Theron - very sexy, and Paul Rudd - The Object of My Affection). In the time before he returns to the orphanage he see's alot of movies, has sex and goes swimming in the ocean which are things he has never done before.

Bravo, well done. Deserves at least one Oscar.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing To Write Home About (Or Present Statues To)
Review: I saw The Cider House Rules a couple weeks after the Oscars. Being a naughty movie fan, I totally bombed on seeing Best Picture nominees; I had only seen Sixth Sense before the big night, but that's another story. The Cider House Rules is a sweet, sometimes painfully poignant movie, that will impress those who like those sappy kind of movies, but will begin to wear on those of us that aren't so sugar-coated. For the first thirty minutes, all the hardships Homer Wells (Maguire) goes through at the orphanage make one want to cry (out of sorrow). By the end of the movie, the excessiveness of these bad turns of luck will make one want to cry out of pain; physical pain, that is. Not to say this movie wasn't nice and touching, but people call it extraordinary when it fit nearly perfectly into so many cookie cutters. Charlize Theron delivered a somewhat lackluster performance, and Heaven knows how Caine beat out Duncan for Supporting Actor, though Caine's performance was quite moving. The movie brings up several points and then answers them; the problem being, it continues to answer them for two and a half hours. By the end of the movie, the point is well taken and, quite frankly, run into the ground. Touching, but a bit grinding as well. 3 Stars.

Rating:
Summary: The filmmakers should have made another choice.
Review: *The Cider House Rules* is about an orphan named Homer Wells.We follow his career as an unwilling abortionist in a New Englandorhpanage run by a Dr. Larch; as an apple-picker with a group of migrant workers; even as a lobsterman. Clearly, this stuff is as nostalgic as a Rockwell cover for the *Saturday Evening Post*. (Did I mention it takes place during World War II? There's even Charlize Theron, looking very much like a 1940's pinup.)

Amidst all this Good Old Days pastiche covering the Good Old-Fashioned Dickensian narrative, we do have some powerful moments, especially early on with the kids in the orphanage, each of whom thinks they're the most worthy of adoption. Fuzzy's story, in particular, will choke you up pretty good, unless you're completely inhuman. This movie has a lot to say about abandonment.

It also has a lot to say about abortion... What was a perhaps sappy but still involving movie about a young man's education in work and love eventually becomes a treatise on a woman's right to choose. Please don't get me wrong: I am wholly sympathetic with the movie's viewpoint. But that doesn't mean that I will, or even should, automatically think that this movie is great. Preachiness never works in literature: it tediously bloated the works of Hugo and Tolstoy . . . and Irving fares no better. END

Rating:
Summary: Excellent,moving motion picture with powerhouse performances
Review: This film is hugely entertaining and,as stated above,very moving. These are the reasons I've seen this wonderful film twice. For those of you who aren't familiar with the plot,it concerns an orphan named Homer Wells (wonderfully portrayed by Tobey Maguire) who leaves his orphanage and goes into the real world. If you haven't seen this film yet,I would suggest you hurry and see it. You will not regret it.