Monkey mini series round up review

I finished watching the 7 part HBO miniseries John Adams the other night. I didn't want to review it until I had seen it all so now I'm going to burden you with my thoughts on it.  No worries for those of you who have not seen it, since it's all in our history books there's no spoilers here.  

My first impression is that the two leads were fantastic in it.

Paul Giamatti, despite being in a few clunkers lately, is a big time talented actor.  He played Adams with much more life and believability than William Daniels did in  the musical 1776.  Giamatti dove in the character of Adams and he wore it like a second skin.  There were no false notes anywhere to be seen in his portrayal.  The only problem I had with it was they took so much trouble to accurately portray these people down to the last detail including blackening their teeth as their characters aged, but in one scene in the final episode they let one scene pass where Giamatti's teeth were pearly white and not blackened like they were in every other scene.  But it wasn't his fault that someone missed it and it only distracted me for a moment or two.

Laura Linney, who played his wife Abigail Adams, was also very good in this project.  She captured the quiet dignity of being the wife of a strong willed man who helped fashion history.  She looked beautiful through out the miniseries, even though at times they dirtied her up and stuck her with some horrendous hair-dos.  She is one of those women who you can not make look bad no matter what you do to her, her good looks shine through no matter what.  My only problem with Ms. Linney's performance was as the series progressed her accent became more and more ridiculous.  I never bought her accent for a second and the times early on in the series when she didn't try to sound "New England" she was much more believable all around.  

Other noteworthy performances we turned in by Tom Wilkinson as Ben Franklin, Mamie Gummer, who is Meryl Streep's daughter by the way, as Adams daughter in law, Sarah Polley as 

Adams daughter (the scene where her character undergoes breast cancer surgery is harrowing and hard to watch but it's among the best of the series), and most all of the men who portrayed the men in the Continental Congress that voted to go to break with Britain.

On the other hand I found the performance and look of David Morse as George Washington to be simply appalling.  Also striking out with me was Danny Huston as a very dickish Samuel Adams.  I found Rufus Sewell's performance as Alexander Hamilton to be a bit over the top as well.  But the performances I didn't like were more than overshadowed by the ones that were spot on.

The look of the series was astounding to me.  They went to great lengths to make the whole thing look as realistic as possible and they succeeded handily.  The locations and sets were fantastic.  The whole thing looked and sounded like we were right back in the 18th and 19th centuries with Adams and Franklin and the rest of the gang.  

I learned quite a bit about the history of how our country was founded and as I watched this mini series I was struck by how long that men like Adams, Jefferson, Washington, and the rest served and how they did so at no personal gain to themselves financially.  I was struck by how different public service is now compared to back in Adams time.  It seems that going to serving one's country now in positions that are akin to the ones Adams and the rest had now means filling ones pockets as fast as one can and working to set up one's life after so that one can make as much money as one can and glorify one's self as much as possible.  It makes me sick to think of how men like Adams, Jefferson, and Hamilton, men who disagreed with one another, often violently and vehemently, but who somehow managed put the good of the country first, have been replaced by thieves, plunderers, and liars like Bush Jr, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Condi Rice.  

If you don't have HBO, then get this series when it hits DVD and watch it.  I highly recommend it.  You'll not only be entertained, you'll be learn something as well.