Fantastic Film, however....

I saw Tim Roth for the first time in this movie. I loved the movie and him very much, even though I watched a Russian-dubbed version.

I do agree about the flatness of Roth's character, and after "Lie to Me", in retrospect I would expect more from him. The story was awesome; the (possibly a spoiler) "competition" gave me goose bumps. That month I watched the movie with everyone I knew, I know, I'm surrounded with people passionate about movies.

And it does surprise me how unpopular this movie is. Had it not been the Russian movie site, I would probably never hear about it. (unless I looked up Tim Roth of course.)

Wow, it just goes to show you how much people and their tastes can differ. I thought it was Tim Roth's finest performance of his career, and considering his body of work, that's high praise in my book. I also felt the movie overall flowed quite nicely; the jumps in time/timing could have been hiding any number of wonderful mysteries, many of which did indeed come to be revealed later.

But then again, I love it that we all see things differently. How drab life would be if we all thought alike!

I thought this movie was absolutely wonderful. I see where you're coming from with all of your comments (except maybe the choppiness), but I think that the character of 1900 was as developed as he could have been. Also, how could his relationship with his adopted father be more developed when he died when 1900 was 8 or whatever? That wasn't really important to the rest of the film; it was just important to know where 1900 came from. As for 1900's distance from society, I thought this was done perfectly. He was hiding the fact that he had never been off the ship, and he was hiding it well (Max didn't even know he was the legend himself). So it was not really necessary to distance him any more than they did.
I do see where you're coming from, but I can't say I agree with you.

Annisarsha I am in the exact same boat, I was recommended this film on the Shine imdb board. I enjoyed Shine a lot more because there were no "Hoakey" parts. Like you I also felt the whole story was "choppy" and many of the scenes(especially those of him playing piano) just didn't work. I didn't really have a problem with Tim Roth, supporting cast wasn't great though.

I would never recommend this movie to anyone but its nice to say I've seen it.

Ok, just curious, a question to the creator of this thread, but also do anyone who posted here: did you watch the 120min version or the 160min version?