- Network: ABC
- Series Premiere Date: Dec 1, 2005
- Season #: 1
- Critic Score
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88Kretschmann... delivers one of the finest performances seen on TV this year.
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70Any way you portray Karol Wojtyla, he comes out looking extraordinary.
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60The movie races so quickly through the milestones of his career... that some of the most powerful moments in his papacy are underplayed.
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This heart-tugger suffers from efficiency. [2 Dec 2005, p.74]
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50Fear plays like an illustrated Life of the Saints on fast-forward. Blink and you can miss decades.
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50Partially because of its more cursory treatment of the Pope's life, the show seems less preachy and more emotional than the CBS effort, and more appropriate.
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40In the end, both [CBS' and ABC's Pope] movies stick to what viewers can agree on (commies and Nazis, bad; love, good), while skipping much of the Pope's sometimes polarizing tenure as a leader.
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40This depiction of John Paul II as half human, half saint -- though hardly unexpected and possibly even warranted -- leaves us with a character that is less dimensional and less relatable and, consequently, less interesting.
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30The movie is more a series of biographical announcements than penetrating drama.
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30The accelerating pace of the movie runs roughshod over the drama.
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30It zips through 60-plus years of Wojtyla's life at a pace that manages to be both breakneck and boring.
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30Granted, the smaller time frame makes it more difficult to chronicle an 80-some-odd-year life, but what emerges is a CliffsNotes version that fastidiously avoids crowd shots (presumably to keep costs down) and struggles to create drama with its worshipful tone.
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30All this feels dutiful and rote - the CliffsNotes version.
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30Anything remotely resembling complexity and nuance has been sacrificed to cramming six decades of history into two hours of airtime, minus commercials.
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25Stiflingly reverential, sadly superficial.
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Because the movie tries to cover too much ground, it will be incoherent for those who don't already know the story, and disappointing for those who do. Worse, it is off-key in its presentation of both minor and major passages of his life.
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10Largely worthless.
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10Even though the life of the Polish pope... obviously is loaded with dramatic potential, the film seems listlessly uninterested in exploring it.
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10Turns the pope into a pious stick figure.
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0I think I could have written a better script during the two hours it took me to watch "Have No Fear." I think you could, too, and I don't even know you.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 5 out of 9
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Mixed: 1 out of 9
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Negative: 3 out of 9
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John9This was as great as the cbs mini series if not better
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PaulW8
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[Anonymous]0