ThiefHott Too much of everything

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Kirpianuscus Maybe, not the best film about Casanova. but one of the most seductive. for the performances and for the recreation of atmosphere and for the inspired bridge between the work of David Tennant and Peter O ' Toole. a film about love. or, more exactly, about life. bitter, nostalgic, full of beautiful flavors, host and ironic, precise and moving portrait of Casanova looking not for events but for the essence of a man behind masks.

dharmabum1966-1 The only reason I can find for the plethora of good reviews of this film is that the positive reviewers love soft-core porn and bad dialogue.Since I'm such a huge fan of David Tennant's from his time on "Doctor Who" I very much looked forward to seeing "Casanova". It turned out to be a complete waste of my time (and not much time because I could only put up with it for the first half an hour).All of David's appeal, which is in abundance on "Doctor Who", was completely absent. From the terrible wig to the half-hearted sex scenes, his performance was a huge turn off. A sad waste of the great Peter O'Toole as well.

spambouk1000 This version of Casanova is delightful in many ways. The cast is outstanding, especially Tennant as younger Casanova and O'Toole as the older Casanova (who is narrating the story to a young woman years later). The sets and costumes are lavish and romantic and the script is witty and funny. Tennant makes the most of moments such as "You love your wife, I love your wife, we're on the same side!" and also plays the romantic plot with his true love, Henriette, very well. Henriette is outstanding, as are Rocco (his friend and servant) and Bellino (who is almost a castrato, almost a man, and almost Casanova's wife).Where the film goes wrong is in the later scenes. Casanova never seems to learn anything or to grow at all: by the end, I almost couldn't care less what he did or where he went. Also, by celebrating the idea of his "shocking" lifestyle, the script wants us to like him, and he isn't all that likable. This was most clear when it came to Casanova's affair with his daughter (yes, it was him and not his son who slept with Leonella. They had a child together and were an item, on and off, for quite a while). In wanting us to see him as a romantic ideal who "shocked" the old fogies, the film avoids any real shocking behavior.In the end, this is a delightful romp that becomes tiresome because it never seems to understand what it wants to do: romp, celebrate, love or shock. Enjoyable but not much else.

Robert I'm absolutely dumbstruck by some of the reviews I've read here. The only explanation I can come up with is that most reviewers are unfamiliar with the historic Giacomo Casanova, and have never seen any of the vastly superior treatments of his story (such as "La Nuit de Varennes"). One of the reviewers even describes it as being about a man from the "17th century". Off by a hundred years, I'm afraid, which is roughly as far off as this movie is from either a well-done biographical film or a historically-accurate one. No, it's Hollywood (or rather, the British approximation of it) through and through.This version is, in reality, a "Casanova" for the "Sex and the City" and "Men Behaving Badly" crowd; all winks and nudges and brash cheekiness. David Tenant is amusing, but absolutely lacking in charisma or depth, much less skill. In fact, he bears an uncanny resemblance to the bumbling characters that Eric Idle used to play. Peter O'Toole does an over-the-top caricature of himself; a role he seems to have been relegated to for the past 25 years. Sad, really. The rest of the cast seems to have been assembled from whoever was hanging around the studio that day, as they obviously weren't chosen for their verisimilitude or subtlety.But the story is far the worst thing about this flick. The dialog is farcical, the plot is boilerplate, there are countless historical mistakes. For example, Casanova fires a pistol into the air to threaten a group of men, and says he'll shoot them next. Problem is, all pistols were single-shot for another hundred years; it would've actually taken him another 2 minutes to reload another shot; any man of the time would've known that! They also dance the waltz; something that didn't appear in Venice for another 50 years. I was surprised to not see Casanova riding a motorcycle while chatting on his mobile phone."Casanova" isn't above trying to titillate by teasing us with an "is she/isn't she" shtick about a mulatto castrato that Casanova "falls in love with". But of course, after playing around with the faux-mosexual aspect, surprise! -it's a girl after all, so the audience can all heave a sigh of relief at Casanova's good fortune. But the real Casanova was well-known to be bisexual (look it up on Wikipedia), although actually having the nerve to show that here seems to be beyond the film-maker's integrity, the audience's stomach, or (most likely) both.The dialog swings between maudlin (when Casanova offers to rescue his prison cell-mate, he responds "but I can't leave; this is my home!") and stand-up comedy, as when Casanova makes his confession and rattles off a laundry list of the women he's slept with ("two sisters, at the same time. Many times. But at least I didn't sleep with their mother. Although I've done that. Many times. So sorry.") And I mustn't forget to mention that the sappy string synthesizers in the incidental music would be right at home in a third-rate soap opera. It's sad to see "Casanova" dumbed down this far. It's sadder still to see it overpraised by people who don't know the historic and literary Giacomo Casanova from Nathan Barley.