Search - Last of the Mohicans (1992) (Ws Dir) on DVD

Heavy cutting guts the drama and love story of the original.

Siberians Rule | 03/24/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I'm a fan of this movie, and my low rating has to do with displeasure at the director's cut version. The original version had its problems, but Mann went overboard in trying to correct those problems and messed up the movie.I've read all of the other reviews here, and people have already touched on many of the major changes in the DVD version. I won't rehash the previous comments. I wrote this review because I don't think anybody yet has mentioned some very important changes made to the director's cut. Taken as a whole, this director's cut is a significantly different movie from the original, much like how Blade Runner got changed completely. Since I don't have a copy of the original version, I can only make comparisons from memory, so bear with me if I make some mistakes.As a previous review noted, the intent of the director's cut seems to have been to add more historical background and authenticity to the movie. This does give a greater richness to the movie, but at the expense of slowing the pace down noticeably. Certain scenes have lost a good deal of their original dramatic effect. I'm thinking especially of Hawkeye's run through the meadow during the big massacre outside of the fort. In the original version, as I recall, there is a continuous camera shot of Hawkeye, running at warp speed, looking for Cora, calling out her name, and whacking Hurons left and right. Melodramatic, over-choreographed, and faintly reminiscent of a Kung Fu fight scene for sure, but that brief shot had a real kinetic energy which got you charged up and let you know in no uncertain terms how important Cora was to Hawkeye. In the new version, we see Hawkeye moving at a more realistic pace, working with Uncas and Chingachgook, and eventually finding Cora. More realistic, but also slower, choppier, and lacking the drama of the original scene.The biggest complaint that I wanted to post here was that the love story of Uncas and Alice had its heart ripped out in this director's cut. In the original version, the build up of their love story was very subtle, and consisted only of a few brief shots of them together. Through their body language, we can see that there is a mutual attraction, and that Uncas feels increasingly protective of Alice. These shots appear to have all been cut out. In the new version, by the time they are in the cave under the waterfall, you have no clue that Uncas and Alice have developed any sort of fondness for each other. In fact, when Uncas grabs Alice to pull her back from the entrance of the cave, and then hugs her tight, my immediate reaction was to think, hey, guy, you shouldn't do that, how do you know that she likes you, she should haul off and sock you for making a pass at her. This lack of development of their love story continues to trouble the director's cut into the final fight scene. Uncas races ahead of his companions to take on Magua's war party single handedly in a fight to the death. Why? In the original version, it was immediately obvious that he was driven by his heroic love for Alice and this love overcame his good judgement. In this director's cut, Uncas just looks like an inexplicable idiot. Later in the final fight scene, when Alice looks down the cliff before jumping off the cliff, the original version makes it apparent that she was looking at Uncas' lifeless body and that she jumped to join Uncas in death because she loved him. With the director's cut, the lack of development of their love story changes the explanation for Alice's suicide - it looks more like she is just so frightened by Magua standing in front of her with a bloody knife that she kills herself two minutes before the rescuers arrive. And so, instead of a tragic lover's death, the director's cut makes Alice look like an idiot also. (I think, in the original version, there was a brief shot of the two bodies side by side at the bottom of the cliff - to emphasize the original reason for Alice's jumping off the cliff - this shot also seems to be missing from the director's cut).The love story of Hawkeye and Cora also suffers. In the original version, they had a lot more scenes together at the fort. Many of those as I recall were somewhat anachronistic verbal battles - very 1990's sexual tension sort of stuff. There was also a scene of a shirtless and very buff looking Hawkeye (not the bedroom arrest scene) where it becomes instantly obvious to Cora and everyone watching the movie why this scruffy mountaineer might make for an attractive mate. Mann seems to have cut out all these scenes in the name of authenticity. But, he didn't have any other scenes available of Hawkeye and Cora together to take their place. So, the sum total of these cuts makes Hawkeye and Cora's feelings for each other a big mystery until all of a sudden they go off to a corner of the fort to hug and kiss. The way the kissing scene is presented is very abrupt in the new version. As I recall, in the original version, there was this long and very beautiful buildup where the two of them first size each other up while the fiddle is playing in the background. Anyway, if you have a copy of the original version as well as the director's cut, I'm sure that you could do a more accurate scene by scene comparison. People should know that the director's cut takes out a lot more scenes than it adds in, making for a very different and inferior movie."