Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

jb_campo Water for Elephants is the screen adaptation of the best-selling book by Sara Gruen. What a wonderful surprise of a movie.Hal Holbrook, grisly veteran actor, appears at a circus seemingly lost, looking for his son. He apparently was part of an old home group and got lost. This is a beautiful opening scene set in the rain and darkness that invokes immediate sadness for this poor old lost man. This excellent opening clears the path to a hugely emotional movie that brings out all the highs and lows of life.Jacob talks with the circus manager and you learn that when Jacob was young, he worked with the 1931 Benzini Circus. When the you circus manager learns Jacob was right there when the Benzini's collapsed, he asks Jacob to tell him about it. This storytelling mode made me think of Peter Falk's narration throughout The Princess Bride.Robert Pattinson from the Twilight series is excellent as the young Jacob. He delivers an emotional portrayal that leaves me wondering why he didn't get an Academy nomination, though he did win a Teen Choice award.Reese Witherspoon delivers a fine performance as Marlena, wife of the Circus owner August, brilliantly portrayed by Christoper Waltz. August is clearly mentally unbalanced, and prone to huge emotional outbursts that hurt people and animals.Jacob, Marlena, and August form a complex relationship that eventually leads to a violent outcome. Involved in this is also Rosey, the elephant, with Jacob as the veterinarian/trainer who must protect Rosey and Marlena.There are many beautifully choreographed scenes with close-up circus scenes, sprawling vistas of trains, and gritty reality views of what life was like living on a circus train traveling from town to town.This movie is not for the squeamish because there is a lot of violence, but only a bit of blood shown. You will experience a huge range of emotions as the Director, Francis Lawrence, does an excellent job of storytelling that keeps it easy to understand what's happening. Water for Elephants is a wonderful movie that is well worth your time. Enjoy.

Kirpianuscus one of films who impress. for the ordinaries sparkles - costumes, recreation of the air of past, young actors and an animal who becomes axis of a story from the circus universe. for the joy of justice. and for a sweet, dramatic, impossible love story. but, more important, for the science to preserve the spirit of novel, recreate a world who becomes inspired mix of the childhood memories, cruel challenges of life and the meet who change everything. America in crisis has a seductive portrait in this film about a long travel to the happiness. sure, it is a good state to discover Robert Pattinson escaping from the cage of Twilight series and doing more than a decent job. but the star is Christoph Waltz who gives great nuances to his August. so, see it !

Johan Dondokambey The movie is in overall just another cliché of a hero's tale, saving the girl in distress and vanquishing the evil man. But the touch of inserting the animals and circus elements are very nice. Those give the old classic story concept a fresh new take to see. The background story elaboration feels nice yet it takes a bit too long for me. One problem for me is that the elephant, which is specifically mentioned in the title, appears quite late in the movie. Also the movie feels like it lacks a bit in depicting the connection to the actual title. It's because there's only one elephant seen on the entire movie, and there's just a few scenes really involving the elephant and water. The elephant and water don't even get mentioned in the same sentence anywhere in the dialog. The acting looks decently okay for me. Robert Pattinson can really handle the age and experience gap in his performance here. I remember when he was only Cedric Diggory while Reese Witherspoon had already done Legally Blonde. Reese Witherspoon did quite okay here providing the romance angle for the story. Christoph Waltz performed just like how we would expect from him, although I'd say that this here is not his best acting job.

Joey Trom Water for Elephants was a great movie, better than the book in my opinion. It had much less sexual contact and portrayed the relationship between Jacob and Marlena very well. Having Jacob talk to the circus director and telling the story that way was very creative and a great change to the movie. It also focused on Rosie, which I believe the book didn't cover very much. It was in general a great movie with good changes from the book; however I believe the ending scenes were much better in the book. Jacob and Marlena jumping off the train together to attempt to live a better life, then Jacob sneaking back on the train was romantic, but strange in the story line. As Jacob and Marlena were not expressed deeply to be very romantic to each other as much as the book, a more romantic scene is out of place. Walter is also a more of a major character in the book, and is barely scene in the movie. Walter somehow turns from a disgruntled dwarf to Jacob's friend in less than a night with nothing to show for it. Other than those few complaints, Water for Elephants was a great movie and I recommend everyone to see it at least once.