I give it 2 stars only for the great acting and breathtaking scenery. After viewing it,all I feel is YEAH,RIGHT!

I wouldn’t watch this again,even for the beautiful scenery! It is too aggravating.
Rating: 2 / 5

I was disappointed in this movie. I was hoping for something better with this cast, but the story line did not do the actors justice. I do not recommend it.
Rating: 2 / 5

While I am a huge fan of period costume movies and British literature, I must confess that this adaptation of Forster’s novel has me stymied. A Passage to India and Howards End are beautiful, fluid films that masterfully balance the comedic and tragic aspects of Forster’s work in a way that makes them accessable to everyone whether or not they’ve ever read one of his novels. Not so with the unbalanced and scitzophrenic Where Angels Fear to Tread–a movie that cannot seem to decide if it’s a lush romance with a hint of comedy, or a grim, cynical satire of Edwardian morals. The first half comes along nicely with the wonderful Helen Mirren as an English widow who embarks on a trip to Italy and subsequently scandalizes her stuffed-up family by marrying one of the local boys. He’s 21, she’s in her forties. But when things start to go wrong for the new lovers, so too does the movie. Mirren’s lover cannot be pinned down. One minute he seems to want her for her money. Then he seems to really love her. Then he adopts a brutish attidtude and roughs her up. One has the sense that the novel would have explained things better, but the movie’s approach to character makes everyone’s motives seem murky.

This is especially apparent in the second half when Mirren dies in childbirth and her repugnantly stuck-up family decides that the baby should be taken from its father and brought back to England. Here the plot becomes murky as Helena Bonham Carter (playing Ms. Abbot, Mirren’s former traveling companion) beats Rupert Graves and Judy Davis (playing Mirren’s brother and sister-in-law respectively) back to Italy to begin coercing the father into surrendering the child. How she thinks she can get away with adopting the baby herself is never explained and doesn’t make sense. She’s not family and Graves, Mirren’s brother by marriage, is a lawyer who could easily sue her. The relationship between Graves and Bonham Carter’s characters is not fleshed out enough for us to decide on their relationship to one another. She seems to be in love with him for half the movie but he’s such a wet noodle mama’s boy we can’t see why. It’s also hard to decide if Graves’ character is as evil as the rest of his family (his mother is the one who decides to essentially buy the child from its father as though it were a painting not a person) or if, as the film seems to suggest, he longs to break free and be his own man. Anyone who would entertain stealing another man’s child–especially after witnessing first hand how much the child is loved by its father–is morally bancrupt, but when Davis’ character kidnaps the child he goes along with it even after we’ve been led to believe, by his stirring speeches about wanting to “be somebody”, that he’s become a better person.

WARNING: SPOILERS!

Uneven characters and badly excecuted plot points aside, the movie might have skated by simply on the rapturously beautiful cinematography and the occassional deep speech about human nature by Bonham Carter or Mirren, both of whom could make a dog-food commercial seem stirring. However, when the contested baby dies during the kidnapping, the event which ought to be the shattering point for Graves’ conflicted character and for the entire Edwardian superiority complex he and Davis have so honored the length of the film….nothing happens. The father beats Graves up, then Bonham Carter induces them to drink some milk together and make friends. Hello! You people are responsible for the death of a beloved child! A little milk is not going to cut it! And yet, for some nebulous reason, it does. In Howards End Leonard Bast was killed just for impregnating a noblewoman. If he’s killed a noble woman’s child, the result should have been even worse. But at the end of the movie no one seems to feel very guilty and Bonham Carter even says that the child’s father doesn’t really care about the death either, even though his pure love for the child has given our misguided protagonists their biggest conflict.

I have not read the novel, but if it is as convoluted and uneven as the film, it comes as no surprise that Forster’s other novels–and their subsequent film adaptations–are better known.
Rating: 2 / 5

This is one of my favorite movies, and I was thrilled that it was finally available on DVD. But what a disappointment! The disk plays like a worn-out VHS tape. 5 stars for the movie, but no stars for this DVD transfer.
Rating: 3 / 5

A period piece that shines a light on the mindset of the upper classes in Victorian England. A wonderful story.
Rating: 5 / 5