If I had to guess, I'd say I read "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" about fifty years ago when I was in my teens, most likely a high school literature class assignment. The scene I remember most vividly from the book was the one where Tom gets a bunch of neighborhood boys to whitewash the fence by using a good old brand of reverse psychology. The movie probably could have done a better job of exploring that scenario, as Tom only managed to convince his first victim in a one on one conversation, the rest were implied to be similarly duped by his engaging manner. Can't really fault the picture much for that because there was a lot of ground to cover from the original story.
The story is about "Tom and Huck", but Huckleberry Finn (Brad Renfro) seemed almost like an ancillary character in the movie. HIs involvement as an on again/off again friend and sidekick to Tom leaves the character out of the picture for a good portion of the time. Perhaps if the title of the movie were the same as the novel, Huck's frequent disappearances wouldn't have been so noticeable. But they did serve to reinforce the idea that he wasn't going to let Tom down when things really got rough, as in the Injun Joe (Eric Schweig) matter.
Barring minor inconsistencies between Mark Twain's written word and this film adaptation, this appears to be a nice, family friendly movie that handles it's dark moments responsibly enough. It's not what one would consider a cinematic masterpiece, even though for a single year way back in 1996 it managed to land a spot on IMDb's Top 250 list. As did a lot of pictures geared to a younger audience, which probably indicates that in it's first couple of years, it was a young adult crowd that brought the site into some prominence before older and more mature viewers came on board. It's actually kind of interesting to see the types of movies that were predominant year by year to the present day. Today, those teen flicks seem to have given way to a host of Bollywood films that hold some sway with modern audiences.
The story is about "Tom and Huck", but Huckleberry Finn (Brad Renfro) seemed almost like an ancillary character in the movie. HIs involvement as an on again/off again friend and sidekick to Tom leaves the character out of the picture for a good portion of the time. Perhaps if the title of the movie were the same as the novel, Huck's frequent disappearances wouldn't have been so noticeable. But they did serve to reinforce the idea that he wasn't going to let Tom down when things really got rough, as in the Injun Joe (Eric Schweig) matter.
Barring minor inconsistencies between Mark Twain's written word and this film adaptation, this appears to be a nice, family friendly movie that handles it's dark moments responsibly enough. It's not what one would consider a cinematic masterpiece, even though for a single year way back in 1996 it managed to land a spot on IMDb's Top 250 list. As did a lot of pictures geared to a younger audience, which probably indicates that in it's first couple of years, it was a young adult crowd that brought the site into some prominence before older and more mature viewers came on board. It's actually kind of interesting to see the types of movies that were predominant year by year to the present day. Today, those teen flicks seem to have given way to a host of Bollywood films that hold some sway with modern audiences.