Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Gitta Verbraak As a huge fan of period dramas I came across this one and was looking forward to watching it. However, I found that this adaptation lacks the finesse you find other period dramas. The story was rather predictable (but maybe that's the novel) and I found that the characters lacked depth and the actors and dialogue often lacked emotion. Yes, Lorna (Amelia Warner) is very pretty but she was not captivating. The music (the lover's leitmotiv), even though very nice, was a bit too overbearing and prominent.Having said this, the scenery was beautiful, as were the costumes. It had loads of potential but, in my opinion, it lacked that little something that made me want to watch this again, let alone add this to my favourites and consider watching it once a year, as I do with many period drama miniseries (Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell).

sjean7772000 Read the novel many years ago. John Ridd was a huge man!! What a disappointment to see a medium sized man play the part, because much of the romance of the story (especially from a woman's perspective) was based on the 'size' of John Ridd. Also, Lorna was 'very' beautiful. The actress was lovely, but not what I would call 'unforgettably' beautiful. The story lost its appeal the minute I saw John Ridd the size of any other man. Also, he just did not sell me on the part he played. This is not the first time I have been disappointed to see a movie after I read the novel, and saw the movie industry take great liberties with some of the basic story line.

Dan1863Sickles This is a wonderful story, with great history, action, adventure, and romance. It's so inspiring to see true love triumph between aristocratic, cast-off Lorna, and rugged, family-oriented John Ridd. The whole Ridd family is so warm and caring you can really see why Lorna is so happy to be with them, and away from the almost animal-like Doones, who were once aristocrats but are now sub-human savages.The only problem is, Lorna Doone herself is actually a fairly minor character in her own story. Nothing against the fetching and gifted Amelia Warner, but as a heroine Lorna tends to let others do most of her thinking for her. It's really John who encourages her to break away from the Doones, and stay snug and secure with his warm, loving family. Then when the truth of her aristocratic background sends her to London, Lorna doesn't do much to protest other than look a bit pained and sad.Frankly, the story seems to leave out all of Lorna's real struggle, choosing between a life of luxurious comfort at the royal court versus the hard work and responsibility of a farm wife in rural Devon. It would have been nice to see a bit more of Lorna at court, sleeping late and having breakfast in bed, being tempted by handsome nobles, lovely gowns, music, lots of gossip and lazy pleasure and sumptuous luxury. There's no sense of what she's giving up to be with John! Another problem is with the villain of the story, Carver Doone. This man is meant to be dark, satanic, chilling, and in his own way devastatingly attractive to Lorna. Instead he's a laughable buffoon. The moment he becomes leader of the Doone clan he makes one stupid blunder after another, yet no one seems to notice. First he leads his men on a raid of the Ridd farm house, and about half of them get shot out of the saddle (by Lorna and John's sisters!) in about ten seconds. But nobody says, "great plan, chief!" Then he gambles everything on having the Doones support Monmouth's Rebellion, with no sense of what's at stake if he loses. Then at the end, his whole clan gets wiped out and all he does is mope and plot revenge against Lorna for jilting him! By the way, it's also very revealing that John Ridd at the end wins reward and pardon from the king for leading the "final assault" on the Doone stronghold in the swamps, yet lovely Lorna seems to have no particular interest in the outcome. Remember, these are the people she's lived with all her life. Even if Carver and his father and grandfather have been cruel to her, you'd think she'd say something to John, like, "please be merciful, darling." Or something! Maybe her mind was still on all the pleasures she passed up in London, or kissing all those handsome nobles of the court!

tdwig Despite the many glowing reviews also appearing here, I cannot recommend this production of Lorna Doone, now being sold as part of an otherwise great boxed set of BBC/A&E productions that also includes Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Ivanhoe, and others. The scenery is great, but the characters are just not likeable.Even I, an American, can recognize that every actor seems to have a different and varying English accent - it's almost like watching an international cast. The actor portraying Carver, the chief villain, is not very convincing as a tough, and carries himself like a dandy. The scenes of the protagonist mugging for the camera are numerous. The direction is probably to blame for this film's uneven quality.