Movies & Books

Last night I watched the second part of a two part movie called the Last Templar. It was based on a book that spent 22 months on the New York Times bestseller list and I’d really like to find a copy of it to see how it differed from the movie. Though I enjoyed the movie (I’ve always liked historic/religious stuff) I really didn’t like the female main character. She seemed a little ego-centric and worked at cross-purposes with the FBI.

I checked the Last Templar on Wikipedia and the summary it gives for the novel is much different than the movie. For one thing, the female lead isn’t such a jerk. Makes me wonder if the little romantic story-line between the female lead and the FBI agent was actually in the book.

It really irritates me when film-makers take liberties with the books the movies are supposed to be based on. I don’t understand the need to do this. If the book isn’t exciting enough as it stands, why consider it for film in the first place?

I think the first time I came across this was the movie version of Mysterious Island. This was (and still is) my favorite Jules Verne book. Imagine my delight when I caught the movie version on the late show one night. A delight that lasted maybe ten minutes into the movie. I kept watching, hoping it would get better, but it didn’t.

There was an interesting thread about this on Absolute Write, the question being: How would you react if the movie of your book was much different than your book? The general consensus was, “Curse under my breath all the way to the bank”.

Sounds good to me.