“Adso, if I knew the answers to everything, I would be teaching theology in Paris.” – William of Baskerville
Number of Times Seen – 2 (cable in the 90’s and 7 Aug 2017)
Brief Synopsis – After a monk dies mysteriously in a secluded Italian village during the Middle Ages, another monk takes on the task of investigating what really happened.
My Take on it – This is a movie that I saw years ago and surprisingly recalled nothing about it besides the answer to the mystery of it all.
I was tempted to see it again in order to see what it was all really about.
Unfortunately, this role is far from being one of Connery’s best and he seems quite out of place as this Monk detective.
The story itself feels like they are trying way too hard to imitate a Sherlock Holmes type of story and transporting everything to Medieval Italy instead of Victorian England.
The story and plotline move along extremely slowly and there were far too many scenes that really brought me to the edge of boredom due to the way it was all presented.
It was nice seeing Cristian Slater in this debut film. He was given a scene to do here that I’m sure every 15 year old would love to have to endure in any film let alone his debut.
Guess it helps having a mother as a casting director. 🙂
F. Murray Abrahams is also quite good here, but he once again plays the same lind of character that he always is given which was similar to the same kind of role that won him an Oscar two years earlier for Amadeus (1984)
Bottom Line – Not the best Connery role by far. The story feel like its trying too hard to imitate the personality and cleverness of Sherlock Holmes but transported to medieval Italy. The story itself moves along pretty slowly and I must admit that I got a bit bored at the way it was presented to us. Nice seeing Slater in his debut role and he definitely has a scene which really stands out which most 15 year olds would die to have done in their first film. Abraham plays his typical kind role that helped win him an Oscar two years earlier for Amadeus (1984).
MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – During his interview and director’s commentary on the DVD, Jean-Jacques Annaud reported that after fifteen year old Christian Slater had been cast as Adso of Melk, he was asked to read with three actresses auditioning for the role of “The Girl.” He read first with Valentina Vargas, and was scheduled to read with the other two actresses the next day, but that evening, he sent his mother (Casting Agent Mary Jo Slater) to tell Annaud that young Christian was so smitten with the 22 year old Vargas, that he didn’t want the other two women to be considered. Annaud, amused, complied with Slater’s wish. (From IMDB)
Rating – BAFTA Worthy
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MovieRob 
This is the film adaptation of my all time favorite novel, which is by Umberto Eco. It’s passable as a film, but it was almost doomed from the start because the real richness of the novel has very little to do with the plot or the situations, and is found in the ideas and the philosophy (Eco was, above all, a semiotician). By definition none of that could make its way to the screen, so all they could do was film the story. Eco used story as a sort of excuse to weave together a rich tapestry of ideas, symbols and epistemology. That’s why the movie didn’t work–the plot was the least important thing about it.
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Wow. Glad to hear im not alone. Tnx 4 that info Sean!
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