Edwin Drood (2012) movie review

Another movie with strangulation and a psychopath...hooray.  :P Watch the trailer HERE (paragraphs don't work when I try to embed it).
In Charles Dickens' unfinished work, young Edwin Drood reunites with his fiancee Rosa Bud after a long separation.  His uncle John Jasper, as it happens, is the local choir master and disturbingly obsessed with Rosa.  Jasper then meets the Landless siblings, who have come to study with the clergyman Rev. Crisparkle, and finds them to be yet another barrier between him and Rosa.  Meanwhile, Jasper's opium-tinged dreams of murder grow increasingly more frequent.

After watching this, I couldn't help but see the following similarity with The Phantom of the Opera:

Edwin = Raoul = spoiled rich kid with good intentions
Rosa = Christine = naive girl
Jasper = Erik = obsessed creepy sneaky old guy with musical talent
Bazzard = The Persian = smart guy who solves the mystery

I rate The Mystery of Edwin Drood (2012) 4 out of 5 stars, but I can't say it is one that I'd rewatch in the foreseeable future.

It was slightly better than I expected (I have not read the book, by the way).  Most of the good characters are pretty likeable.  All throughout the movie, I kept thinking "Bushy sideburns...neither Edwin nor Jasper looks like a leading man, but at least their hairstyles are accurate!".  Many familiar actors/actresses, some from other Dickens adaptations.  Nice cinematography.  Decent pacing, if a little too choppy.  I liked Bazzard, the bored secretary/nice version of Mr Guppy, and Neville Landless a lot (why Rosa prefers Edwin is the biggest mystery). 

Could have been longer, overall; I'm so used to looong Dickens dramas that this felt almost incomplete.  Also, the Dickensian sense of humor that one expects is greatly missing.  There's some, but very little in-between all the gloom and doom.  Given the subject matter, I'm not surprised--it reminds me a little of Martin Chuzzlewit, which is the most depressing one I've seen.  Chuzzlewit retains some charm and comedy, however, that doesn't show up much in Edwin Drood. 

There is way too much repetition of the strangulation scenes (and in front of the altar, no less).  It makes the old Poirot episodes look like light viewing.  After a while, I concluded the filmmakers were just being plum lazy at the viewers' expense.  They could have shot, or edited-in, 5 extra minutes of footage instead of copying & pasting.

The ending (not written by Dickens) was very well-done, and I must say I didn't completely see it coming.  It really felt like his style.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is not quite up to par with Bleak House (either version) and Little Dorrit (2008), though I can see they were striving for that and did match it in certain aspects (e.g. cinematography, casting).  Edwin Drood is a bit too depressingly realistic; there's no hint of how such a crime could have been prevented...doubtless, Jasper would have found a way to get drugs, even if opium and laudanum had been illegal in Victorian England.  I guess this story (or adaptation?) reminded me more of Thomas Hardy than Dickens, which could be a positive or a negative.  Going back to Martin Chuzzlewit--as my mom pointed out, the crime in Chuzzlewit originates from greed.  In Edwin Drood, it's the product of a sick, hatred-obsessed mind, which is the main reason this story comes across as darker.