Lost Empires (1986)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Written by Ian Curteis, based on the novel by J.B. Priestly
Directed by Alan Grint
Starring Colin Firth, John Castle, Carmen du Sautoy, Beatie Ednie, Pamela Stephenson, Gillian Bevan, and Sir Laurence Olivier

Features:

• Photo Gallery
  
• Web Links

My Advice: Skip it

After his parents' death, Richard Herncastle (Firth) decides to follow his Uncle Nick Ollanton (Castle) into the world of the theatre. His uncle has a magician act that he plays in the touring Empire shows in Great Britain just before the outbreak of World War I. Richard takes the job with the knowledge that he has nowhere else to go. So, he packs up his belongings and his passion to be an artist and follows his uncle around on tour working both on- and offstage. He quickly learns that the theatre is not the place that he wants to be and the people who are involved in this business are not always what they are cracked up to be.

I hate to say it, but this is really a long, albeit well produced, mini series about a man's life in the theatre...and that's really about it. He has several encounters in that world that could be considered dramatic, but you have to look long and hard to find a solid plot line in this story. Firth plays the same moody character that he has become known for in his film work. He does great work with his eyes and you can easily see that there is some amazing work going on, but it gets really boring at times. The other characters in the story are the ones that take center stage most of the time, and they are the ones with the most color and depth.

The most sympathetic of these supporting characters is played by an aging Sir Laurence Olivier who, as usual, turns in a stunning performance. Within in the first hour of the miniseries, he has a scene with Firth that makes you want to pull your eyelids off you're weeping so hard. His character is an aging performer who just can't come to grips with the fact that his comedy act has become old and trite (even with the audiences screaming and throwing the ingredients of about a dozen salads at him while he's onstage).

On a positive note, the best thing about this miniseries is the attention paid to the period style of the variety shows of this period. While the dance numbers are not all that exciting compared to today's standards, they are incredibly accurate. Costumes and makeup are impeccable; the cast and crew really did their homework on this one. If there is a reason to watch it, it would be to see the variety show vignettes that pepper this series.

The DVD case claims that "this Goldhil DVD is enhanced with special feature that lift this presentation to a new level of multimedia excellence." Let's see what kind of material it is that they claim can do this. A quick scan of the DVD cover only reveals things like "Chapter Selections" and "Interactive Full Motion Menus" as the special features. However, there is a "Photo Gallery" and some "Web Links" listed. The Photo Gallery is a slide show of what appear to be still production photos that would have been used for an advertising campaign. There's really nothing special about them and they don't seem to be in any kind of order. However, you can scroll through them at your own pace with your remote control.

The Web Links are the worse of the two features. These are nothing but text-on-screen URLs that you would have to write down and type into your web browser to actually go visit. To make matters worse, they are not easy URLs, either. They are chock full of /'s and ".co.uk"'s just to make things interesting. It's enough to make you not want to follow the links--ah, but let me save you the trouble. The websites that these links lead you to are cryptic at best, but that's only if you happen to get one of the links that is still active. I guess the first clue that this might be possible should have been that one of them is a Geocities site. Nothing against Geocities, but these are personal, free websites that generally are run by people who do other things for their day jobs and have a hard time getting new content up so quickly.

So, I would say that this DVD is one that could just as easily be missed at caught. If you see it sitting on a shelf and feel like sitting through it, you might want to pick it up, but don't go out looking for it.