in spite of the negative reviews, my wife and I took the plunge and went to see this film. I have read all the Stephanie Plum books so am familiar with the characters and the story lines.
The good
Katherine Heigl looks the part of Stephanie and is how I visualised her too look. I cannot comment on the jersey accent but it sounded good to me. the location shots were well done and nicely filmed, Daniel Sunjata as Ranger I think worked well. The wrap up scene worked quite well and nicely pulled the pieces together.
The average
I'm afraid that Jason O'Mara as Morelli didn't quite work for me - maybe if the chemistry between him and Katherine can be improved (see later) I would change my mind.
The poor
The comedy timing was awful - Grandma Mazur is a key eccentric character in the books (as is Lula) these need to exploited in future films (assuming that there are any). There was no chemistry between the characters you felt that they were reading lines a lot of the time - a lot of the reason that Stephanie plum works is that she gets along with people and shows compassion(for example with Lula and in later books Mooner) in this film she turns up and asks questions and people tell her the answers, that's not how it works in the books - sorry.
overall 5 out of 10 - I wanted this to be a success, I with more attention to the people and crisper comedy timing and direction these players could make it work. I do wonder if they will be given the chance.I will watch it again on DVD to see if it improves on a second showing.
The good
Katherine Heigl looks the part of Stephanie and is how I visualised her too look. I cannot comment on the jersey accent but it sounded good to me. the location shots were well done and nicely filmed, Daniel Sunjata as Ranger I think worked well. The wrap up scene worked quite well and nicely pulled the pieces together.
The average
I'm afraid that Jason O'Mara as Morelli didn't quite work for me - maybe if the chemistry between him and Katherine can be improved (see later) I would change my mind.
The poor
The comedy timing was awful - Grandma Mazur is a key eccentric character in the books (as is Lula) these need to exploited in future films (assuming that there are any). There was no chemistry between the characters you felt that they were reading lines a lot of the time - a lot of the reason that Stephanie plum works is that she gets along with people and shows compassion(for example with Lula and in later books Mooner) in this film she turns up and asks questions and people tell her the answers, that's not how it works in the books - sorry.
overall 5 out of 10 - I wanted this to be a success, I with more attention to the people and crisper comedy timing and direction these players could make it work. I do wonder if they will be given the chance.I will watch it again on DVD to see if it improves on a second showing.