Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with my thoughts on the centerpiece film of the Santa Barbara Film Festival, Michael Apted's AMAZING GRACE, starring Ioan Gruffudd, Mr. Fantastic himself.

I really, really, really didn't like this movie. I didn't like it much at all.

The idea isn't a bad one. The flick focuses on the political maneuverings of William Wilberforce in 1800s Britain. He tirelessly tried to ban the slave trade and started as a lone voice in the parliament and ended up leading the majority in abolishing slavery in Britain. Whoops... spoiler... in case you didn't know that they still don't buy and sell black people in the UK.

Ioan Gruffudd... I'm not a fan of his Mr. Fantastic. He doesn't come across as a bad actor, but he's woefully miscast in that film. I was very open to him being good in a non-Tim Story movie, though, so I didn't go in rooting against him. He tries. He really does, but the script just isn't up to snuff. Really... I kept expecting to see Ricky Gervais and Maggie from EXTRAS pop up in the background wearing curly white wigs. It feels so stuffy and fake. There's literally a moment in the movie where Gruffudd walks towards camera and begins a reminiscence. "Remember Cambridge..."

The supporting cast is more than solid. Michael Gambon brings some great energy to the screen as Lord Charles Fox, a prominent Parliament member. Albert Finney is great in his 3 or 4 scenes as John Newton, mentor to Wilberforce and ex-slave ship captain. He's now a monk and he wrote the song Amazing Grace, his way of confessing to his sins. Toby Jones (INFAMOUS) also brings some humor and life into an otherwise stagey and dull film.

The biggest problems in the script is we are told and not shown. We hear speech after speech of how inhumane the slave ship transfer to the Americas or Britain is to the Africans, hear all about the disease and beatings and deaths. But we never see it, even when Wilberforce tricks a handful of Parliament members to seeing a slave ship we are just told how bad it smells and that is the reason why these rich, white women begin crying.

To a worse extent we skim over big plot points and just suddenly find ourselves years in the future, seeing the end of a big thread just barely begun. Wait a minute... why's that dude on this death bed? What happened? So, did they vote yet... is this something new? It's confusing and would be frustrating in a good movie, but here I just kept hanging on because I liked seeing Gambon and Finney pop up and it is Michael Apted. He deserves a full viewing, even if I felt it hard to sit through.

I liked screenwriter Stephen Knight's previous script, DIRTY PRETTY THINGS and he's scripting David Cronenberg's EASTERN PROMISES, which looks very promising, so hopefully this film is the exception, the good idea that just didn't work as a script.

Looks like it's coming out later this month from Walden Media and Samuel Goldwyn films. I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to catch it.

-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com