Snowgo

This is perhaps the best movie I have seen that deals with the subject of racial equality. The direction is superb. Not a single moment, not a single word or scene is wasted or impertinent. The pacing is perfect. The acting is excellent all-around. Linda Hamilton's character is not formulaic or single-dimensional: She is torn between saving her relationship with her rigid and traditional husband and showing the love and friendship that is natural to her. This is a movie with a big heart with none of the gratuitous violence of The Secret Life of Bees, for example. Usually, I find that movies based on a true story to feel limited by the director's or sceen-writer's ability to negotiate and render the product in a meaningful, compelling and seamless way. This movie does not suffer from that. If you are losing faith in mankind and wish to infuse your spirit with some warmth and humanity, watch The Color of Courage.

Ok. I'll have to admit that I watched 60 seconds of this and threw it out. The reson for this is because they broke my cardinal rule: Do not begin a movie with violence (especially murder). This type of scene requires some context, so must be led-up-to. The manipulation involved, here, makes me angry: We are supposed to view the murder of this lighthouse keeper and then just ignore that it ever happend and sail blithely along into the next, unrelated scene. Is this an attempt at de-sensitization? Or is the screen-writer and producer simply without any decency or morals?

The fact that this is a children's move makes the sin doubly-egregious.

You're probably thinking that I am over-estimating the importance or the influence these types of messages sends to kids, that murder is nothing to reject or oppose, that violence is "just a part of life".

Tell the story. Don't force-feed us your apathy and amorality. If you are going to include violence or murder in the story, at least give us a context and a reason.

I'll have to admit at the out-set, here, that I know very little about Russian history. That being said, I was expecting a great deal more from this movie than was given. Catherine was purportedly a visionary that changed Russian society by instituting laws that helped the poor and was a patron of the arts. We saw none of that in this move, only a person driven by ruthless ambition.

I thought that toward the end of the move we would begin to see some philosophy or ethics form part of her character, but this was not to be. When she allowed her political opponent to be executed at the end of the film, a man both brave and righteous, the movie fell apart. A shame.