Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Micitype Pretty Good

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

DeuceWild_77 Released just 1 year after the similar "Tombstone", "Wyatt Earp" was the Kevin Costner's response to Kevin Jarre's script, focused more on the central character of Wyatt since his upbringing, instead of the side characters that bring nothing to the film.Teaming again with Lawrence Kasdan after "The Big Chill" ('83) and the way popular "Silverado" ('85), that helped to resurrect the western genre in modern times, Kevin Costner, this time also as a producer and taking the lead role of the intrepid Wyatt Earp, both deliver an insightful semibiographical western film about the life of the legendary lawman since he was a boy in his family farm in Missouri to his later days in the Gold Rush in Alaska.With "Silverado" and his personal tryumph, "Dances with Wolves" in his resume, Costner moves comfortably in the western genre and provides a good performance as the stubborn and ruthless Wyatt Earp, giving him the needed humanity as a man who lost the love of his life and became cold and emotionless, only believing in kinship and that the law should prevail in the wild west, until he mets Josie Marcus, a daring actress and falls in love again.The movie is overlong and in the first hour the pace moves like a snail, but like an old american epic it takes time to establish the character(s) for telling their story(ies), even if some scenes were cut out to shorten the movie for another half a hour, creating then some loose ends for certain subplots and side characters, but at least was less disjointed than "Tombstone" in that matter.The production values are all splendid invocating the Old West, especially the beautiful cinematography by Owen Roizman, nominated for an Academy Award and the orchestration by James Newton Howard which reminds a lot of Bruce Broughton's score in "Silverado".The cast is good, but not as great as the rival "Tombstone", featuring besides Costner, Dennis Quaid who stole the movie as the lunger Doc Holliday, Wyatt's best friend and right hand, the actor is almost unrecognizable skinny playing the character and provides a memorable haunting performance that deserved to be Oscar nominated (he was even better than the amazing Kilmer's rendition of Doc); Gene Hackman in an extended cameo as the patriarch Earp; Michael Madsen, David Andrews, Linden Ashby & Jim Caviezel (in an earlier role) playing respectively, Virgil, James, Morgan & Warren Earp with Catherine O'Hara, JoBeth Williams (re-teaming with Kasdan after "The Big Chill") & Alison Elliott playing their wives with Annabeth Gish, Mare Winningham & Joanna Going portraying the three wifes of the long life of Wyatt Earp.The villains are less showy here than "Tombstone" and barely got decent screentime with the exception of Jeff Fahey (re-teaming with Kasdan after "Silverado") as Ike Clanton and Lewis Smith as Curly Bill Brocius. Strangely, the Johnny Ringo character way prominent in "Tombstone" as played greatly by Michael Biehn is only mentioned in the third act and was played by a stuntman.Mark Harmon as the sleazy Sheriff Johnny Behan; Tom Sizemore and Bill Pullman as the brothers Masterson, Wyatt's lawmen and Isabella Rossellini in the tiny role of Big Nose Kate, Doc Holliday's mistress complete the main cast.In short, "Wyatt Earp" flopped hard when it was released and was bashed by critics because of its length, slow pace and too much focus on Costner's character, with "Tombstone" being the critics and fans' favorite, but besides its all-star cast, fast pacing and shoot'em up / action oriented, the Cosmatos / Russell effort is inferior to this Kasdan / Costner re-teaming of "Wyatt Earp" that needs to be rediscovered by fans of an all american period piece epic film, produced and directed in the old style of the Western tradition...

HotToastyRag I always find it fun when a boring movie's backstory is juicy; it's like a consolation prize! So here's the deal with Wyatt Earp: Kevin Costner was going to star in Tombstone, but he split off from the project and co-produced Wyatt Earp with Lawrence Kasdan. He'd wanted the movie to be all about Wyatt, so hopefully he was happy with his own version. The ironic revenge of Tombstone? It was released six months earlier and made more money at the box office.Now, to the movie. It's over three hours, which is an improvement over the 6-hour miniseries it was originally intended to be! But it's still really long, and not in a good way. Some movies can get away with a slow pace, and this just isn't one of them. The cure for such terrible boredom would have been a title character so wonderful and easy to root for that the audience doesn't mind the slowness. In this version, Wyatt just isn't likable. He's violent, vengeful, selfish, loses his temper constantly, and is a womanizer who doesn't have any respect for women. I don't usually have an issue with that, especially if it's during a time period when respect for women is hard to find anyway, but the "charm" Wyatt uses during his romantic interactions is more offensive than appealing. I tried, but it was pretty impossible to root for Kevin Costner in this movie, and if you're not rooting for the hero, you've got a very long three hours in store for you.My favorite version of this story is 1957's Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. But if you like modern westerns and Kevin Costner, watch Open Range. It's similar and much, much better.

BasicLogic Furthermore, the annoying, totally irrelevant sound track which bombarded from the very beginning to the end, stick to every scene was so stupid, pointless and blind. The tune of the sound track failed to match every scene, yet still kept playing on and on.The script was so poorly crafted like an old woman's countless wrinkles, fold after fold, baffle after baffle, then the moronic director didn't even know how to appropriately concise and concentrate a bit, so many unnecessary scene after scene that should be omitted or should be cut away by a smarter editing company. The whole movie should be at least 1 and half hour short, yet it lag on and on, forced the viewers to watch so many pointless scenes.This is the worst and the most boring movie that Western genre could have ever achieved. It just pushed me into YAWNTOPIA.

powermandan Wyatt Earp is probably the lowest rated epic on this entire site. And why? Just because it is not a masterpiece? I consider Wyatt Earp to be a "near masterpiece"--just need of some more polishing in some areas. Let's face it, Wyatt Earp has no little problems but very few big problems which ultimately cost some fans. I would rather see a movie with no little problems and few big ones than one with many little problems and no big one. One facet that made Wyatt Earp a commercial failure was that is to this day still standing in the shadow of the more successful and better-liked Tombstone from one year prior which also deals with Wyatt Earp. While Tombstone deals with Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday's regiments in Tombstone, Wyatt Earp is a 3 hour and 10 minute biopic of the lawman's entire life. This film was originally intended to be a six hour miniseries. I wonder if it would have been better that way or if it would have just added fuel to the fire.Wyatt Earp is without question Kevin Costner's most underrated performance. He is low-key but on the whole, very accurate to the real Wyatt Earp; even more than Kurt Russell in Tombstone. Dennis Quaid steals every scene he is in as Doc Holliday. Quaid lost 43 pounds for the role and was closer to the real guy than Val Kilmer in Tombstone. The first chunk of the movie explores Earp's upbringing. He wants to be involved with the law and we all know his wish comes true. The casting call for young Wyatt was smart since the kid looked exactly like Kevin Costner at age 15. He grows up and marries a beautiful woman, but her early death takes a toll on him. I was really liking the movie a little while after her death. But as the story delves deeper into Wyatt's journey as a law enforcer, the movie really seems to lose its overall balance. From then on, the pace of the movie is very uneven and the subplots are all scrambled that make most of the movie quite confusing. The unevenness and bad pacing of the movie are the only two big flaws that impact the movie as a whole. Other than the pacing and unevenness, Wyatt Earp is a great western that almost anyone will enjoy.