Having seen the film and red the comments in here, here's what I have to say about Harrison Bergeron: First of all, acting: Sean Astin is the obvious wrong choice for the lead in this TV film. A better choice from within the cast would be his brother Mackenzie, but I guess the perfect Harrison would be Jonathan Brandis as he has eyes that pour out intelligence, the convincing looks that he may be darn intelligent - and even athletic- as Harrison Bergeron is described in the original story. Sean Astin looks too old, too fat, too short for the part and most important of all, he looks as if he is Forrest Gump and it's definitely not what Harrison Bergeron should be represented as. Astin doesn't look smart enough to work at the till at the local supermarket and give the right change to you, never mind masterminding a third American Revolution. The scene when he takes over the broadcasting room and becomes excited about watching and broadcasting all those "gems" of the past is pretty bad and badly acted, but the part when he pretends to conduct an orchestra is, in one word, pathetic. It's the nadir of the film and any scene anytime can't be worse, to my opinion. Miranda de Pencier seemed too old for her role and surely doesn't look at all like the love interest able to create an obsession for someone as smart and (supposedly) cool as Harrison. Christopher Plummer was the best-cast actor, and I can't think of anyone better than him to play Klaxon. Secondly, in terms of dialogue, the script looked too confused to say anything at all: There were too many cheesy, useless dialogues, to the extent of rubbish like "You stupid boy. She was pregnant," as if Harrison's suicide was created by a problem of love, and no, it wasn't. Besides, the education system didn't really convince me at all for most seemed to deliberately forget the answers or answer wrongly to the teacher's questions. Anyone as smart as Harrison should learn in four years in the same class that he should shut up and say "I don't have a clue," instead of telling who did what in the American War of Independence. Besides, he looked as if he repeated stuff he had learned by heart, and it's not what I call smartness. Yet, it's a shortcoming of the Vonnegut story as well as of the film. I didn't bother too much about the now infamous Macaulay Culkin dialogue I red a lot about in the above comments, for I am sick of the fact that anytime someone mentions a film of quality from the 20th century, it must either be Casablanca -which is not credible enough in the year 2000 never mind 2053-, Citizen Kane -which is incomprehensibly boring for most people-, or It's A Wonderful Life. Why can't it be Star Wars, Silent Movie, or Apocalypse Now, for instance, for a change? Or, why should it be Beethoven who creates the immortal music but not Queen with Bohemian Rhapsody? And, if the rulers of the future so refined, why can't we see them wear better clothes than what Chairman Mao would prefer to wear? Why should the people of the future wear dull, grey clothes; work and live in dull, confined, grey spaces which look like the interior of a crowded submarine; and never seem happy or joyful and never make any jokes at all? One day, someone must portray a far different future than this. Overall, I guess Harrison Bergeron is a well-made TV-film, with an emphasis on the words 'TV-film'. The problem is it can't pass for a real movie. It is too crowded with too many ideas so that they are either misrepresented, mis-emphasised or look silly; besides the film looks cheap, it has terrible acting at parts, but it is surprisingly all right to watch most of the time, too. I was far less bored and irritated than I thought I would be, and I believe that's a good point on the film's behalf. Yet, I sincerely hope there will be a better director with more resources and a better cast who will try to remake it sometime, for it's too good a story to be told like this. Finally, after all is said and done, the film may still be considered a success when one compares it to what they've done to Grand-Master Asimov's Bicentennial Man with a big budget and with a star as famous as Robin Williams as its lead.
Review of Harrison Bergeron
