Very faithful adaptation of George Orwell's dystopian vision of the "future" world of 1984 - perhaps closer to reality today than ever before.
The sets and cinematography are minimalistic and sufficiently bleak and gritty, which really evokes the hopelessness found in the novel. The acting is also good (especially Burton), although I felt that Hurt's Winston got a bit too whiny at times.
The biggest problem, however, is that the success of the film relies too heavily on the having read the book. There are events and nuances in the performances that are lost compared to the subject matter. In other words, the book is obviously much richer in details and such, and it can't be expected that it's all properly transferred to the screen, but the film doesn't manage to stand on its own. Things from the book could have been added or removed in order to shape it into a better film.
As it is now, it never rises above being a visual companion to the novel, rather than being a really good film. The same problem is evident in, for example, the Harry Potter films, that also suffer from this problem. So, in the end it's certainly worth watching, but it's not the wow-experience it could have been. [6/10]
The sets and cinematography are minimalistic and sufficiently bleak and gritty, which really evokes the hopelessness found in the novel. The acting is also good (especially Burton), although I felt that Hurt's Winston got a bit too whiny at times.
The biggest problem, however, is that the success of the film relies too heavily on the having read the book. There are events and nuances in the performances that are lost compared to the subject matter. In other words, the book is obviously much richer in details and such, and it can't be expected that it's all properly transferred to the screen, but the film doesn't manage to stand on its own. Things from the book could have been added or removed in order to shape it into a better film.
As it is now, it never rises above being a visual companion to the novel, rather than being a really good film. The same problem is evident in, for example, the Harry Potter films, that also suffer from this problem. So, in the end it's certainly worth watching, but it's not the wow-experience it could have been. [6/10]