Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

kampfschweinhenrik The (DVD)movie "The Tempest", directed by Jack Bender, was published in 2001. It didn't make its way to German cinemas and neither the director or an actor were able to receive an important award for this movie. The movie refers to the Shakespearean play "The Tempest" which was published at the end of the 16th century. The director tried to create an modern version of this play, but failed. At the beginning of the movie the plantation owner Prosper gets in a conflict with his brother Antonio about the treatment of their slaves. Antonio sets his brother a trip and tries to kill him but with the help of a witch, Prosper is able to escape and flees with his daughter and a slave called Ariel to a small island nearby the Mississippi river. For over twelve years he has lived isolated on this island, till a lucky chance enables him to take revenge on his brother....If Prosper will be lucky you have to find out by yourself.In my opinion this film is really a bad try to create a modern version of the original play by William Shakespeare. The story of the movie is confusing as well as the characters. Prosper doesn't have the same powers as in the tempest..... END OF PART I

tedg Holy Cow! Don't watch this unless you collect creative travesties.Superficially, this is a stew of the same persiflage usually served up on family TV: kindly voodoo projected as Luke Skywalker's Force; a protective father who goes through painful doubt; innocent pubescence; racial justice; magical help for the North during the Civil War (no lie); leavened with all sorts of minor platitudes. Probably, this is no worse than thousands of slapdash dramas. What makes this interesting, almost hypnotizing, is how it rests on the rough skeleton of Shakespeare's play. It blindly tramples, it innocently debases arguably the best play of arguably the greatest writer in English.Gosh, I cannot even describe the arbitrary transmutations used to fit this simple diorama: Arial a slave, Frederick a Union officer, Prosper a planter who learned voodoo from his slaves... it all hardly matters. One interesting thing: The Tempest was the first great work of literature about the American experience. Almost 400 years later, it still has some of the most profound and complex visions of dealing with non-Europeans, slaves and the forces of nature in the New World. All of that rich content is waiting to be leveraged, dummied down if need be. All is ignored here.It is as if the Hardy Boys were named Tom and Huck and the plot was about petty racial dramas in painting a fence. Wonderous.And Peter Fonda? This was right after the interesting Ulee's Gold, where he actually acted. No sign of that here.

sangris For a TV movie this was definately worth seeing. All the acting was very well done and the story itself had a touching universal theme. I have not read/seen the original and as a rule I can't stand Shakespeare, but I enjoyed this movie(the civil war setting was very well done as well). Dont expect to see an epic, however you should find it moving enough to enjoy. By the way (on a side note) don't compare this (or any other movie for that matter) to the original work. Movies aren't supposed to transfer a book to the screen, but rather take the general idea of it a then adapt a story from it. When people say "the book was so much better" (they're usually wrong anyway) what they are really trying to say is the book was so different.

Aislynn I had just finished struggling through the Shakespeare play, and found the core idea of the whole thing fascinating. Shipwrecks, magic, hallucinations, a beautiful girl, the evil protaganist. When I saw the ad for a tv movie, I knew I was going to like it and I did.Katherine Heigl is one of my favorite actresses (Miranda) and she carried the role off just right. The special effects were convincing enough to not interfere with the enjoyment of the movie. My favorite part is Ariel morphing as he returns tot he ground. Plus it helped that Ariel was gorgeous.Nice work...just glad it was a tv movie or it would have gotten mauled by the critics.