Sometimes they get it right

Last night I watched From Hell, the movie based on Alan Moore's graphic novel about Jack the Ripper. I'm often wary of Hollywood adaptations, especially when they involve classics like this, but they did a surprisingly good job this time.

Alan Moore's From Hell is a huge, sprawling graphic novel filled with a wealth of detail. I was curious about how they would adapt such a dense and multilayered story to the screen.

I was pretty impressed with the job the makers of the movie did. They succeeded in communicating the core of the story faithfully while creating a very watchable movie. The events of the plot were streamlined and compressed in an intelligent way. I was a little bemused by Abberline's acquisition of psychic powers, but I could accept that as a narrative device to convey information to the audience. The ending was slightly more upbeat than the graphic novel, but it still had the same bittersweet flavour.

I guess it's a good example of an adaptation that maintains the spirit of the original. Nice one.