Film Review – Great Expectations

It’s not that there shouldn’t be any adaptations of the Charles Dickens book, “Great Expectations,” but it would benefit the filmmakers if they elected to space out the productions, putting a few years between attempts. After a 2011 BBC miniseries with Gillian Anderson made its way to America in 2012, this Mike Newell-directed version hits screens a year after its British debut. That’s a lot of “Expectations” to manage, especially when this latest effort to realize the work doesn’t have the luxury of time, speeding through the story, sacrificing characterization and nuance of plot to stuff it all into a single picture. The strain shows, and while the tech credits are undeniably striking, this “Great Expectations” is merely perfunctory, not essential. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com