Say what you will about Mark Twain, but the story of Huckleberry Finn and Jim was truly his best. Forget Tom Sawyer and his fence - the tale of a mischievous child from an abusive home escaping with a runaway slave capable of enlightening said-child's perspectives on freedom gets my vote. At the height of the popularity of Bart Simpson, Disney released another adaptation of the classic starring a new up-and-coming child actor named Elijah Wood as Huck and a Yale graduate named Courtney B. Vance as Jim. But wait! The stars just keep on coming; Back-to-back Oscar-winner Jason Robards as the King, pre-Harry Potterized Robbie Coltrane as the Duke, Ron "Hellboy" Perlman (I could've sworn it was Tom Waits!) as Huck's drunk pappy, and Anne Heche (still hiding her cuckoo) as Mary Jane Wilks. There are also cameos by "Six Feet Under's" Frances Conroy, Curtis "Booger" Armstrong, and Pete's younger brother Pete Danny Tamberelli. There are quite a few dark moments for this PG-rated film, but maybe that's a big part of why I support it; Huck's gun-wielding confrontation with his father happens to be my favorite scene, though it's certainly not the darkest (That would be Billy's big scene.). The end of the movie is quite different from the end of the book - of course, they took the happily-ever-after approach - which sucks and ultimately makes a film filled with beautiful scenery and an unbelievably terrific score by Bill Conti seem like just another piece of Disnefluff. I know a bad ending can slay an entire movie, but one can't deny there's some good stuff in this one.
Review of The Adventures of Huck Finn
