Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Original poster

So, am curious, what are your WORST film/book adaptations?

120 replies

steamedtreaclesponge · 25/08/2009 15:49

Following on from the other thread, what are the most disappointing film adaptations you've seen?

Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones made me want to gouge my own eyes out with a fork. And it's not even one of my favourite books.

OP posts:
JulesJules · 29/08/2009 13:10

Agree re Dark is Rising, disastrous adaptation, and the books are so brilliant.

I also really really hated Absolute Beginners, it is the only film I have actually walked out of at the cinema. The book is wonderful, one of those books you are really sad about finishing.

teadrinker · 29/09/2009 22:30

Latest Harry Potter movie is just awful. Really have enjoyed the others and must confess am still working my way through the books (door steps). Does this count?

Surely the book can't be that bad can it?

Goober · 29/09/2009 22:33

Angels And Demons made me verrrr cross!

spiralqueen · 29/09/2009 22:37

Seconding Bran with Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightly I was shouting at the cinema screen. Know several other people who did the same. I was with a Dutch friend who didn't know the book who loved the film so I frogmarched her to Smiths afterwards to get the book and the BBC most recent adaptation.

muddle78 · 29/09/2009 22:40

the unbearable lightness of being - milan kundera was made into soft porn which made me indignant

diedandgonetodevon · 29/09/2009 22:41

The DaVinci Code- utter tripe as a film.

WickedWench · 29/09/2009 22:48

Another vote for the Keira Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice. Dreadful!

And as much as I love the film of Little Shop of Horrors they gave it the Hollywood happy ending rather than sticking with the original much darker stage show ending. Still a fab film though. I forgive them.

fruitshootsandleave · 29/09/2009 22:53

she is really bad

KiwiKat · 29/09/2009 23:02

Balloonslayer, I couldn't agree with you more about the pathetically wet and NOT golden good looking Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes. What a crime against casting!

And I've very surprised that no one's mentioned the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy yet - what a travesty! Marvin the Manically Depressed Robot white, cute and round? No, no, no!!! And don't get me started on the abomination that was the Americanisation and Wimmin's Lib banshee that was Trillian. Grrrrr!

[Kiwikat slaps self in face - calm down dear, it's just a movie! Slinks shame-facedly from the room]

spiralqueen · 29/09/2009 23:07

Kiwi - least venting about films stops us from stressing about other things eh?

Olihan · 29/09/2009 23:10

The Other Bolyen Girl was unbelieveably awful. Ridiculous casting - Henry VIII wasn't dark haired and brroding FFS, they jiggled about with the order of events so it made no sense and tried to condense FAR too big a story into a 90 minute film.

It was shite.

English history rewritten for Americans .

mwff · 29/09/2009 23:11

yeah the beach the book was great fun and really rather creepy at the same time, whereas the film was leo di-c and a bunch of gap year kids destroying an ecosystem (literally, i believe).

hitchhiker the book was just a shadow of hitchhiker the radio series anyway so can't say i ever had any expectations for the film.

KiwiKat · 29/09/2009 23:11

I wish! [waves to Spiral, all the while laughing hollowly]

KiwiKat · 29/09/2009 23:15

And A Prayer For Owen Meaney, one of my all-time favourite books, by the not-always-reliable-but-when-he's-good-he's-good John Irving. Bad, bad movie. Humph!

That said, I thought The World According to Garp (another John Irving) starring Robin Williams, was very good.

Rachmumoftwo · 29/09/2009 23:15

Olihan- totally agree there about The other Boylen Girl. Terrible film. The BBC adaptation a few years previously was much better though.

Also hated the film Girl with a Pearl Earring- maybe they need to stop taking books I love and putting Scarlett Johannsen in the lead. I have liked her in films where I haven't read the book funnily enough.

CornishKK · 29/09/2009 23:24

Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood - loved the book, the film was utter shite.

The Clan of The Cave Bear (the only half decent book in a series which turned into soft porn very quickly) with Daryl Hannah. Dear Lord - wrong, wrong so badly wrong.

TV seems to be worse than film, budget constraints I guess - Neverwhere, not great, Skallagrig - what were you thinking BBC?!

ByThePowerOfGreyskull · 29/09/2009 23:25

I was just about to say clan of the cave bear - thinking no one else would have heard of it!!!!!!11

Cornish, Daryl Hannah was an apaulling choice!

CornishKK · 29/09/2009 23:32

No way Grey - half of Mumsnet were in love with Jondalar during their teens, just thankful that The Valley of the Horses never made it to the big screen.

I remember when CotCB was released on video, I BEGGED my Mum to hire it, so, so bad.

Apollinare · 29/09/2009 23:36

Pride and Prejudice with keira Knightley - the film is pretty annoying but I was thinking about giving Matthew Macfadyen a whirl one day- UNTIL I watched the alternative American ending in the 'extras'- this is so stunningly vomit-inducingly awful that it may become my favourite all time movie moment - its absolutley priceless! What was Deborah Moggagh thinking of??

CornishKK · 29/09/2009 23:45

Anyone seen The Valley of the Dolls - is it any good?

claudialyman · 29/09/2009 23:45

somehow Stephen King books go very well on screen: Stand By Me, Green mile and some decently chilling ones of his horror ones. And Shawshank Redemption is the most faithful book to movie translation in storyline. character and spirit of the original that ive ever seen. Whatever control he retains of the script Louis de bernieres, jk rowling, alex garland and the literary executors of jane austens estate pls take note

ByThePowerOfGreyskull · 30/09/2009 08:53

cornish have you read all the others?

Bucharest · 30/09/2009 09:05

I now try and not watch films if I've enjoyed books....
Where on earth they managed to get so many dreadful child actors all together in one studio for the HP books I do not know, but I bet if the adult actors had sounded so "I'm-reading-off-an-idiot-board" they'd never have made it as far as film 2.

Bridget J annoyed me intensely because the whole premise of the book was that she wasn' fat, she just thought she was....whereas RZ had to lard herself up...why????

Watermelon with Anna ("I'm playing Anna") Friel.....awful, just awful. I hated Marian Keyes for allowing them to basically change everything except the title of the book.

PS I love you, book was dire so never watched film.

Bridges of Madison County- Clint has to realise that men aged 70+ should not take their pants off in public. It's not nice, it's not pleasant.

I did see a Jane Eyre years ago with an fairly ugly Jane, though, wasn't it Jane Birkin's daughter? No beauty.

CornishKK · 02/10/2009 10:45

Grey - I read the first four I think, Clan of the Cave Bear was the only decent one really. Though at 14 The Valley of the Horses was a bit of an eye opener

Confessions of a Shopaholic was TERRIBLE.
The Prince of Tides - so bad.

And a Stephen King that didn't translate well - Pet Cemetery, it was never going to work.

I thought the recent Wuthering Heights on ITV was awful too.

Kiwi - Hitchhiker's was a travesty!

mackerel · 02/10/2009 13:19

Agree that Captain Corellis Mandolin is possibly the worst film adaptation ever - bad, bad casting and to change the story so massively...what were they thinking. It was the only time i came close to leaving the cinema midway due to hating a film so much. Only the fact that I was 38 wks pregnant and wedged in stopped me.