Best movie of this year hands down!

Sorry, this movie sucks

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Great acting and directing plus an ingenious plot line make "Angels and Insects" a movie worth watching. Returning to civilization from the Amazon, Mark Rylance is taken in by a wealthy, aristocratic family. He falls for the oldest daughter of the house, Eugenia, who is lovely but troubled. He thinks she is the most beautiful creature he has ever seen.What he discovers about the Alabaster family is a dark secret which shatters his world.The movie is beautiful to watch and a real thought provoker. I highly recommend it.

This is one of the most visually repulsive movies I have ever watched.I enjoyed reading the other reviews for this film….I got a good laugh from the person who described the women's dresses as being like a visual jackhammer. The dresses are supposed to reflect insects the field of study of the main character.The first thing I personally noticed aside from the bumble bee and other jack hammer dresses was that the lighting was too bright indoors. It looked like flood lights were everywhere when in fact a night scene in that era would have been candle lit. Thus my first disappointment=something looks cheap or wrong here…was this filmed with some unknown color film? Second there is the revolting albino poor white trash looking group of aristocrats living in an authoritarian like atmosphere (the Alabaster family...whitest whites alabaster get it?? ) with servants cringing towards walls etc… It could have easily turned into a horror movie.And finally last there is the predictable totally unbelievable modern feminist twist to the story—-the unbelievably talented in every sense of unbelievable "right on" strong woman who rescues the milquetoast male lead---something guaranteed to win it Oscar nominations. What can I say....ho hum...it would get a lot of claps on Oprah. It is something you can't seem to escape from any more

A tough AS Byatt adaptation from Philip Haas which takes a cold look at Darwinism. Rylance's Mark Adamson is a ruined botanist who takes not only the charity of his patron Sir Harald Alabaster but, in time, his daughter Eugenia's hand. Something is not right though and tragedy strikes him a second time when he discovers her secret.Haas has created a lush film, overflowing with life as if the Alabaster house were a jungle itself. This is the irony of the film. A strange transformation seems to have taken place whereby the appropriately named Alabasters have lost the warmth and colour of a moral existence, a better life of which only Sir Harald, Mark and the discreet but ardent Matty Crompton seem to be aware. Kristin Scott Thomas gives the best of the performances as the intelligent but buttoned-down Matty. It's just a shame that her role is necessarily minuscule compared to the less engaging Patsy Kensit, well-cast but not particularly memorable as the frigid Eugenia, not that an unsympathetic Ryalnce does much to help her, I'm afraid. Douglas Henshall is ideal as the insipid Edgar. 6/10

Tepid. What a waste of a good title. The production has more in common with television than film. Instead of exploring in a challenging and sensual way the themes implied by the title, the movie timidly rehashes conversations we've all had about metamorphosis. Chalk one up for the marketers, who created warm and enticing packaging for a film that is emotionally distant at best. I don't think the fault lies with the material - in terms of pure plot, the story itself is quite satisfying. But the filmmakers are so incompetent that you feel like you're in high school English class listening to someone mumble through a Shakespeare recitation. Presentation is everything, but they give nearly nothing. Feels like the whole thing was shot by the second unit. The costumes are beautiful. Kristin Scott Thomas (a major reason I rented this) is underused, though as effective as they allowed her to be.