I'm not a lover of silent cinema for a host of reasons, The Regeneration manages to avoid a couple but walks headlong into others.
It tells the tale of a young boy who loses his mother at a tender age, he's raised into violence and poverty and finds himself as an adult engaging in criminal activity. But when a kind hearted lady enters his life he finds himself questing for change, but can he escape his past?
The first thing that struck me about The Regeneration was how stunning it looks, there are movies made decades after this that don't look this good. The camera work is oddly crisp, the cinematography excellent and the performances are considerably less hammy than you'd expect from this era.
I feel like the movie would have been best served as a short, maybe at a 30-40 minute length. As a feature it dragged and the soundtrack though superior to most of it's ilk really does begin to grind on you.
The Regeneration is a wonderful attempt and one of the best of its type that I've seen, alas certain tropes of the genre that I despise meant it could only go so far.
The Good:
Looks incredible for its time
Great finale
The Bad:
Music gets old
Drags around the middle
