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I love this movie so much

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

In my youth I set myself the task of reading Dickens. I read Great Expectations, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit and a few other novels with great pleasure. I decided that I could skip the ones I judged weaker, and so I never bothered with A Tale of Two Cities. On the basis of this ITV series I made the right choice. Dickens is never interesting when he deals with events taking place before he was born, and so it is here. I don't care about Dr. Manette and his daughter, Sidney Carton and his death-wish, or any of the other plot threads.The cast is starry: John Mills, James Wilby, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Anna Massey (whom I remember from so many TV dramas) and many more capable performers, many of them French. The sets are well-designed, costumes appropriate... ho hum.

I had to read A Tale of Two Cities for my English class this year, and found it to be not that bad of a read, and it got VERY exciting towards the end. After we finished the book, our class watched this movie...while I had fun watching it because its so terrible at points I couldn't stop laughing, it's really a travesty.The first problem is that almost all of the acting (perhaps with the exception of Darnay and Dr. Manette) is remarkably terrible. They have hired a whole movie's worth of low budget B-Actors, who simply can't be taken seriously. Their emotions are laughable, they deliver lines terribly, their accents are inconsistent, and they often overact trying to compensate for their own bad acting.The worst thing is probably the script itself. Since I have read the book I followed the movie very well, but to someone who hasn't, they would be completely lost. The movie never keeps on clear direction or narrative and jumps all over the place spastically. The story is hardly told at all, its almost as if the script is ATOTC highlights strung together into almost 4 hours of hell.So if you're DESPERATE for a movie version, give it a shot. But terrible acting and terrible script keep this from being all it could be.

I rented this movie without expectation, thinking it was just another mini series made in the 80's with poor lighting and wacky hairstyles. But I was blown away by it! The innocence and heartbreaking bittersweetness of the movie gripped me, and of the thousands of movies I've watched I have never seen one with this astounding of character development. Even if you generally don't enjoy movies like this, I recommend to give it a try! It's not easily found, but if you are lucky enough to stumble across it you'll love it. The set and hairstyles are very 80's-ish, but the acting and characters are so perfectly drawn I didn't notice anything but them! Sydney Carton now ranks right up there with Sir Percy Blakeney (from The Scarlet Pimpernel) on my list of ideal men.

This is without doubt one of the real gems of the British TV scene ever. The story, the characters, the costumes and the acting are all without fault and could never be bettered. Do not pass up the opportunity of seeing this series if it ever should arise. From the opening scenes to the tear-jerking conclusion there is drama, excitement, romance, heroism and self-sacrifice, often several of them simultaneously. It is altogether a most marvellous experience and a real landmark in the history of recorded drama. I don't doubt that Charles Dickens would have been proud to have been associated with it.