The Westing Game (1997)

I love this movie so much

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Why ruin my favorite book of all time.They got rid of 4 characters (Dr. Denton Deere, Flora Baumbach, Madame Hoo, and Chris' and Theo's father).Destroyed four plots. (Angela's future husband, Turtle's "mom", the burglar plot, and the connection to Violet Westing.Completely ruined the personalities (and names) of all of the Winsdor THEN Windklopple not whatever stupid last name they have in the movie.Where did Turtle's braids go? Why is Angela a snob? Why is Grace so friendly? When did Jake work at a store? Why is James skinny? Since when was Doug nice? Why is Angela in love with Edgar Plum? Where did Angela's bombing plot go? Where are the candles made by Turtle? How was this AWFUL movie even released??????!!!!DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE! WORST MOVIE BY FAR!!!!!!!

A couple of years ago, I finished reading the humorous and creative book, The Westing Game. At the end of the school year my 2 teachers let me and my class watch this movie to compare to the book. My teachers had hinted that we would be very disappointed. After watching the movie, the whole class, thought the movie was much, much more than disappointing.A few reasons why this movie was bad: They excluded many important characters. I understand it would be hard for directors to have many characters, they probably thought it would confuse the audience. The book had clever humor in it and it made you fall in love with the characters and the whole story. Again, this was probably hard for the directors, in the book, there was a narrator.One of the biggest mistakes that the director made was having Turtle Wexler as the main character. She solved Westing's Game and none of the others seemed important besides Sandy/Westing. The Westing Game was not really about Turtle, it was about all the tenants in Sunset Towers. In the book, she later becomes more of the main character; you follow her story and others.Many plots were also excluded, many characters, their personalities were changed. For example, Angela Wexler, she was a timid, shy and she had a do-anything-your-mother-says attitude, but not in the movie. I was sorely disappointed with this film and I hope they have a whole new film about the Westing Game and that everyone will eventually forget about this film. It has already begun to fade from my memory.

Ok well I was overjoyed to find out that someone cared enough about this book to make a movie out of it. But when I watched this I was very disappointed. It was way too short. I wanted it to be just like the book, a mystery. But the way you could tell that Ray Walston was the same 4 people was sad. His black hair Piece for Barney Northrop looked like it was going to fall off and second. My 5-year-old sister figured out the mystery after the first 10 minutes. And his pretrial of Sandy seemed more angry, and selfish then the sweet funny Sandy who always tried to cheer everyone up in the book. Sydelle Pulaski was more like Mrs. Bomback then the ignored, depressed Sydelle in the book. Well to keep this short none of the characters were the same as the book in this movie. The Westing Mansion looked smaller then my house and my house is very small. This movie would be so much better if they made it look more like a movie and less like my little sister going over to someone's house with a camera and trying to film their own version of it with my mom manning the camera, and them improving the script. I wish I could say more about this movie but I can't. Oh wait, Shane West is really sexy in a wheel chair.

This movie has a "made-for-tv" feel to it with mediocre actors and shallow character development. Being a big fan of the book, I was disappointed that the movie made some major changes to the plot and even eliminated some heirs. The joy of the book are the quarky characters and unexpected twists of the story. The movie comes across as more bland and contrived. I didn't really root for any of the characters to win the game. My advice, skip the film and just read the book by Ellen Raskin which won the Newbery Medal.