‘Cyrano‘ is a beautiful film ruined by terrible music and a worse accent.
‘Cyrano‘ is a beautiful film that is unfortunately and quite sadly ruined by terrible music and a worse accent.
I almost always detest the notion of a remake and the latest adaptation of the 1897 play based on the real life Cyrano de Bergerac written by Edmond Rostand for once gave me a glimmer of hope. Sadly, that hope was dashed with the swoosh of a pen turning what could have been one of the most beautiful period pieces in recent cinematic film history into a movie musical that was ruined not only by terrible songs, but one particular actor’s average American accent.
I need to preface that Kelvin Harrison Jr. is a tremendous actor and has been quite enjoyable in his previous works,
but alas, he was completely miscast as Christian. If Mr. Harrison would have been able to at least pull off a Trans-Atlantic accent, it would have been a far more believable portrayal of Christian, but his average American accent just make him sound like the guys I grew up with that had no skill in chatting up the ladies. Think Keanu Reeves’ accidental Australian accent in ‘Dracula‘, which just takes you right out of the film.
Peter Dinklage is always untouchable and the twist of using someone of his stature instead of the usual, “Hey, this guy’s got a big nose,” played exceptionally well for the camera. Haley Bennett was a fine Roxanne although I never felt that Roxanne was truly in love with either Cyrano, nor Christian.
What absolutely destroyed this visually gorgeous film, giving it the extremely low score that it earned was the godawful music. How each song could be worse than the next left the beauty of 17th Century Europe looking like Roman ruins.
‘Cyrano‘ is worth the watch if you are able to mute the audio in order to read the closed caption, but beyond the gorgeous cinematography, ‘Cyrano‘ is a hard pass, even for those of you that enjoy musicals.
The worst part in all of this is that I truly, truly was looking forward to ‘Cyrano‘ and this is coming from a guy who loaths musicals, but as much as I forced myself to suffer through the remake of ‘West Side Story‘ (Ariana DeBose stole the movie), which ‘Cyrano‘ beats in all aspects of production and performance, it is one to wait for to watch at home.
- Overall Score
Summary
As visually stunning as ‘Cyrano‘ is, the musical aspect destroys the wonder of this picture.
Harrison Jnr is American. Born in New Orleans.
It hardly matters anyway as it’s set in France!
Just would have been much better without the dire songs.
Agreed. I was shocked to hear the songs in the trailer. I generally enjoy musicals but the songs were bland and the singing was confusing- as if a bunch of people were screaming off key. I so wish this was just a non-musical because it is so distracting.