David Copperfield (1999)

Rating: 90%
Well I've been curious about what's the story of David Copperfield for a while ever since I heard of the title. I was a little more interested when I heard that there was a film version of the book where Daniel Radcliffe first appeared in film just a couple of years before Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. So eventually I decided it was time to settle the matter once and for all and get this movie from the library and watch it. So here's what I thought about it.

Plot: David Copperfield was born shortly after his father passed away and was raised the first eight years of his life by his mother and their maid Peggotty. Then one day his mother marries a man named Edward Murdstone, whom David becomes afraid of and takes a disliking to David. Murdstone whips David for falling behind on his studies one day which leads David to bit his finger, and as punishment, he sends David to a boarding school owned by an abusive friend of Murdstone's who is cruel to David at his request. Eventually, David finds out that his mother died at home where shortly afterwords, Peggotty is fired as his maid and he is sent to a black ink factory where a series of adventures and tragedies follow afterwords.

This was an entertaining movie. The characters were enjoyable and the cast was more interesting then I thought. Because all I knew about it before watching it was that it contained Daniel Radcliffe and Maggie Smith. But it turns out that there are many other familiar faces in this film, some are also from the Harry Potter movies. For example we have Ian McKellen (Gandalf from Lord of the Rings) and Magneto in the X-men movies), Tom Wilkinson (Carmine Falcone from Batman Begins), Bob Hoskins (Edward Valiant form Who Framed Roget Rabbit and Smee from Hook), Zoe Wanamaker (Madame Hootch in the Harry Potter films) and even surprisingly Imelda Staunton (Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter films). As for the story...it was enjoyable and I liked it a lot, but I had one main issue with it. Primarily that it seemed to be a lot like Oliver Twist when it comes to the main character meeting all kind of people good and bad and things like that. In a way I thought the first half to be Oliver Twist and the second half to be something of a Oliver Twist the sequel. But I still like the story because it had more stuff then Oliver Twist did, especially with the second half of it. So it may not be totally different from Oliver Twist but it is a little bigger then it with giving us more characters, and therefore more interesting sub plots.

Actors/Characters:
Daniel Radcliffe and Ciaran McMenamin/David Copperfield: Now the guy at the end of the film did talk about how this book was more about the supporting characters then the main one because he was a little bland which was why Charles Dickens improved when he wrote a similar book years later. And as much as I hate to admit it with this character being half played by Daniel Radcliffe, I will admit that I can see where David can be viewed as a bland character. I mean like I said, he wasn't too far apart from Oliver Twist in the sense that he is something of an innocent, friendly boy who meets a lot of people both good and bad or somewhere in between. But I think he was a little more developed as the story went on and either way, I thought both Radcliffe and McMenamin gave good performances and that it makes it little wonder that through this film, Chis Columbus watched Radcliffe in it going "This is what I want. This is Harry Potter".

And that's my review for David Copperfield. The story may not be too different from Oliver Twist in a generalized sense, but it still gives us an enjoyable story with very good acting and amusing characters.