Review - Dances with Wolves

This was the latest in our "movie we should see" series. Dances with Wolves, first, this movie is long, really long, absurdly long . . . admittedly we had the special director'scut edition but it still clocked in at four hours (as opposed to the three hours of the theatrical release). Much of the first half was a total waste, stuff that could have been easily cut and added nothing but time to the film. After the main character starts interacting with the Sioux it gets a bit better but still a lot of stretched scenes. The pieces with the Sioux were interesting and sympathetic. But the US Cavalry were shown as just evil, almost to the point of caricature, which rather weakened the point. Costner just is not that good of an actor, his delivery (especially when doing the voice over for his journal entries) was wooden, and when three hours of a movie features one actor on screen, he had better be engaging. It did, however, do a good job of showing the vastness of the American prairie. My Grade: C-