There's a lot of hate going around saying it's not as good as the book, but really, movies never are! Having never read the book, I have no idea how the story was supposed to go, but I had seen Oliver and Company. I was very confused by this movie. From the start, it was very difficult to tell Olivier apart from the other boys when he was in the orphanage. Well, until he recited the famous line of asking for seconds, which it was Gruel, it probably only cost them $2 to feed the entire orphanage! So many questions came up over the course on the movie. Why he didn't just stay with that nice old woman he met on his way to London. It was obvious she wouldn't have minded him staying. Of course if he had not gone to London, it would have been a very dull movie. For that matter, why were those thieves so hell-bent on keeping Oliver? I much preferred the motivation in Oliver and Company, where they were innocently trying to rescue him. Moreover, why use Oliver to break into that rich man's house? Another more experienced boy would have been much better suited for the job. It's a very confusing movie.

This movie simply looks stunning. Set, costumes and camera-work create a beautiful atmosphere. Every actor does a perfect job and fits perfectly into their role. Especially Fagin (Ben Kingsley) has been impressive. He might have become immortal inside cinema history with this performance. All other actors/characters turned pale beside him. So if this movie is flawless, why didn't I give it 10 points? There are a few things that have been done great, but could have been done even better. For example the dog. The dog just didn't have the presence it should have been given. He didn't look scary, nor mystic. The symbolism barely worked in the movie. A better film score might have helped a lot. The music stayed too much in the background and was pretty much never moving. I also found that the first quarter of the movie was quite boring story-wise. But after that the story developed a lot and is totally stirring and interesting.I love dark movies, it's one of the reasons why I liked this movie a lot. It totally doesn't feel like a family movie. Cheerful situations are rare, colors are always dark. This movie might not be to the liking of children and can barely be called a family movie with its pessimistic tone, brutality and darkness.

Charles Dickens' imagination, wrote George Orwell, "overwhelms everything like a kind of weed", and it's true that his works translate to the screen extremely well for that reason. Whether or not you also agree with Orwell that Dickens' characters "start off as magic lantern slides and they end up by getting mixed up in a third-rate movie" is a matter for personal taste - though only the grouchiest critic would brand Polanski's take on this family favourite anything like a massive let-down. What Dickens is best at, of course, is story - and here, Polanski delivers; there's also a sense he's aiming for the definitive version - more knockabout than David Lean's, darker than Carol Reed's. However, like those cinematic predecessors it's necessarily rendered in shorthand and distilled to the prime components: orphans, beadles, pickpockets, prostitutes and kindly benefactors. It looks great, or at least 'Dickensian', as screenwriter Ronald Harwood says: "not the historical sociological truth - that's boring", and Polanski's London is a hyperreal dystopian theme park where everyone seems to be spilling out of taverns in mid-fistfight. Kingsley's practically unrecognisable as Fagin, while Oliver (Clark) isn't half as soppy as forebear Mark Lester, even sporting a bit of an Estuary twang. Bur Foreman as Bill Sikes is no Oliver Reed - whose own portrayal still has the capacity to turn children's matinees into panicked paddling pools. Also, the mind hiccups at crucial plot points: it's Lionel Bart's glorious songs we most associate with Oliver, and tellingly, this version feels strangely hollower for their exclusion.

The 1948 David Lean film is a classic, that is well worth watching for the outstanding performance of Alec Guiness. This adaptation was very good indeed, but I do think it is inferior to the 1948 film.The film does look splendid, with fine period detail, and the cinematography is gorgeous. I also thought the score by Rachel Portman was beautiful, and very fitting. Roman Polanski's direction is excellent, and although it is a long time since I read the book, it is fairly true to the source material. Barney Clark gives a charming and vulnerable performance in the title role, and the Artful Dodger and the other boys are well done. Nancy was well portrayed and her character's death was very disturbing, I have to admit. The end scenes were very well staged and perfectly captured on camera.However, the film does have some less impressive bits. I will confess I was disappointed in Ben Kingsley as Fagin, he wasn't terrible, he just wasn't quite my idea of Fagin. Fagin is supposed to be oily and manipulative, and while Kingsley occasionally had these in his performance, compared to the outstanding performance given by Guiness, it was somewhat anaemic. Jamie Foreman looks the part of Sikes, and evidently has the acting ability, however I felt that something was holding him back, as if he was reluctant to be violent. The dog wasn't quite as convincing as the dog in the 1948 film, in the case of the 1948 film, if there was such thing as an Oscar for animals the dog should've got it. I did like the fact that the film tried to be faithful to the spirit of the book, but it felt a little bloated at times.Don't get me wrong, it is not a terrible movie, it's just that I preferred the David Lean film, but I did like this film a lot. 7/10 Bethany Cox