After reading the novel which is about a one hour read, watching this film became a sad disappointing experience. Just as he did in prince of Egypt simon wells somehow managed to direct a script that took away all the drama and mystery out of its source material and turned it into this homogenized nonsense. Now I'm a sucker for cheese and camp but this movie made absolutely no sense. There was no joy in any of the performances or any humor. There were no thrills and that silly bookend with addy's character of filby throwing his hat in the air was the last hackwriting straw. I felt very violated when this movie was over and I still refuse to believe it was only 90 minutes it went on forever. I wondered how the studio and director could have OK'd such a lousy script but then my friend pitched the movie to me exactly as It was and I said wow that sounds great but what happened to the movie.