I had watched bits and pieces of this when it first came on, but I finally sat down and watched the whole thing from beginning to end not that long ago. There were, of course, the many little rankling things that would bother any fan of the novel, but overall, I thought it could have been worse! Here’s a few more specifics:
I really missed Percy’s disguises. It didn’t seem awfully plausible to me that everyone would know him as Sir Percy in France, and would never connect him with the Pimpernel. I also don’t recall Percy killing anyone in the books, really. Did he ever? But Richard E. Grant’s Percy didn’t seem to have any qualms about that.
Marguerite: “Not as agreeable as his occasional flashes of silence.”
I thought Grant did quite well with the material. Some of it was very well written, and funny, especially Percy’s “foppish” dialogue. There were some interesting plot twists, some I liked, some I didn’t. I didn’t like Elizabeth McGovern as Marguerite at first, but she had grown on me a bit by the end. Martin Shaw really did very little for me as Chauvelin, but I’m still partial to Terrence, so what can you do? 🙂
The main thing that *really* upset me was that they killed Dewhurst!! That was just unnecessary. And Percy’s reaction to it – “He knew the risks”?? I don’t think so. The Percy in the book would never have forgiven himself if something had happened to one of his men. I also thought that Percy and Marguerite’s reunion was a little sudden, just because we hadn’t seen any of Percy’s feelings for Marguerite before. I don’t know what I think of her knowing that he knows about the St. Cyr betrayal. I’ll have to think about it a bit more.
At any rate, despite all my complaining, it wasn’t that bad a movie, and definitely worth a watch if you’re a fan of the story. I’m glad they made it! Hopefully it will interest more people in the other versions available. Visit the A&E site for the show.