SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

kijii This 2.5 hour movie won FIVE Oscars and was nominated for FIVE more!! It is the best major presidential biopic that I have seen in that it covered Wilson's entire presidency--not just a portion of it. This is my 2nd viewing of the movie, and I got MUCH more from it this time than I did from only one viewing. This movie was made during WWII, and I suppose that audiences were more drawn toward experiencing WW II, as in Since You Went Away (1944), The Seventh Cross (1944), or Lifeboat (1944)--or escaping from it, as in Going My Way (1944) or Gaslight (1944) did. My assumption is that movie audiences did not much want to look backwards towards WW I. Still, there is some good history, here, presented in an entertaining and enlightening fashion. I felt that Alexander Knox gave a convincing— perhaps Oscar-worthy--performance as Wilson. The movie generally presents the legislative accomplishments of his first term and his struggle with WWI and trying to get his 14 points and the League of Nations approved during his second term. It also inserted some real black-and-white newsreels from period. Also, I am quite sure that Knox gave a couple of Wilson's speeches as they were originally written. e.g. his speech to Congress asking them to declare war on Germany. I have two main reservations with this movie: 1) It only covered the positive side of Wilson's presidency and did not cover his negatives (but I suppose that is typical of a Hollywood movie). 2) I felt the internal designs of the White House were a bit too ornate. If you haven't seen this movie, I would recommend it.

vincentlynch-moonoi It's interesting to read the reviews here of this film. For the most part, either quite positive or quite negative. And I have to come down on the negative side.First, the film is so historically inaccurate. What else could it be when you include anything positive about the subject, but exclude anything negative about the subject. And with Wilson -- despite the fact that I'm a middle-of-the-road Democrat, there's a whole lot of rather unsavory racial issues and a sense that a president should be autocratic and above it all, that is left out of this film. There is no mention of his racial beliefs. There is no mention that he felt that his decisions were made through him by God. This is the sort of Wilson biography you might expect to read in an elementary school history book back in the 1950s...that all Presidents were good or even great.And then there's the fact that the film is just playing boring...or should I say tedious? Perhaps the only parts that I truly enjoyed were the scenes at the convention. Not sure how accurate that was, but it was interesting to see how conventions might have been a hundred years ago. And what about his health? Throughout the film there is no mention of health issues, and then suddenly he's not supposed to go on his speaking tour because of his ill health. No groundwork had been laid for that.Alexander Knox was a fine actor, but it seemed as if Hollywood never quite knew what to do with him. He does well here as Wilson. The film has a pretty good cast, but beyond Knox, on one has a particularly strong part. If I had been Thomas Mitchell or Charles Coburn, I would have been particularly disappointed in their weak parts here. Perhaps Geraldine Fitzgerald as the second Mrs. Wilson did deserve a mention.Production standards were high, and it shows. Rather lavish. The award winning photography was hard to see in the version being shown on TCM...it really needs restoring of the clarity and crispness.I'm glad I saw it, but I'll never watch it again.

phil allen This epical film was made in 1944, during our darkest hour! I was lucky to have caught and taped it on AMC when it ran films without interruption.The continuity of 'Wilson', which for all its sweep covers only about 12 years, is bound along by a series of uplifting speeches--from his gubernatorial-candidacy stumping to wartime president--which are better in the hearing than in reciting in front of civics class. When I see yellowed photos of schoolchildren in class from a century ago, I imagine that these orations are what they heard Teacher recall. Still, I found delight in the brief glimpses of domestic, somewhat mythologized life of pre-Great War America in the Wilson household, probably not touched on in class. Imagine a family evening of singing tunes around the piano in these times! Two odd moments in 'Wilson' captivate my attention. In a minor shot concluding Wilson's nomination in 1912, he's asked to "Smile!" for the camera and does so, literally in one frame! (Try it on your freeze-frame.) And then there's the film's opening. Totally unexpected and rather outside the stern tone of what follows, we are treated to a fictitious slice of the Princeton-Yale football game of 1910--war on a field of friendly strife. This brief recreation of "stone age" gridiron play is utterly unique in feature film. It displays the fearsome-looking leather helmets--a few years after their faddish peak--which both intended to assure players' cranial safety and presaged the headgear many would don in earnest short years ahead. For college-football historian/fans, a time to mist up.We have too few class efforts on the filmed lives of our presidents, whether in whole or in part. 'Wilson' is one of these gems, in spite of understandable lapses expected in a film of its day.

washboardplof This film has many remarkable things: Above all, it's a great recreation of the ambient of the beginning 20th century, done with a strange realism for being a Hollywood movie (the politicians are crying constantly for make himself hear, as it really was before microphones). And the choral scenes (and there are many!!) are really well done. On the opposite, the film seems in 2D, probably because of the color advisers of the Technicolor System, that gives that ugly colors and that kind of lightening, all full of light. But the main thing that makes the film boring is the lack of psychological characterization on the characters, above all, on Wilson, that Alexander Knox play as if he was made of wax. And, of course, because you end with a big stomachache of "democracy" a word that you can hear no less that 90 times.