ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 22, 1995 TAG: 9512260005
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: MOVIE REVIEW
SOURCE: CHRIS HEWITT KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
Misguided parents' groups and book haters have been trying to put the kibosh on ``Tom Sawyer'' and ``Huckleberry Finn'' for years, but reports of the books' deaths have been greatly exaggerated.
``Tom and Huck'' brings those rambunctious boys back for another go-round. The movie takes off most of the books' rough edges to offer a bright, cheery sampling of Tom and Huck's greatest hits (whitewashing the fence, Tom's ``funeral,'' getting lost in the cave), without the emotional connections that make it mean something.
Jonathan Taylor Thomas, of TV's ``Home Improvement,'' looks disconcertingly like a young Shirley MacLaine, but he makes an engaging, intelligent Tom. Rachael Leigh Cook is just fine in the small role of Becky Thatcher, but Brad Renfro (``The Client'') comes off as a testy Huck, instead of a resourceful, independent one. He also looks like he's been rafting down the Mississippi from one Pearl Jam concert to the next.
Together, Tom and Huck are sort of a junior ``Lethal Weapon'' duo in buckskins. They're on the trail of Injun Joe (yes, he's still called that), who puffs on a big cheroot and throws knives at anyone who gets in his way.
This stuff is pretty involving, but it lacks the real meat of the famous novels. There's some heart when Aunt Polly (Amy Wright) tells Tom how exasperating and lovable he is, but that's the only scene in which any of the characters connect with each other. Instead, we get two boys running around the woods in a movie that has too much marking time and not enough marking Twain.
``Tom and Huck''**
A Buena Vista Distribution playing at Salem Valley 8 and Crossroads. 95 min. Rated PG for modest violence
LENGTH: Short : 46 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Jonathan Taylor Thomas plays Tom Sawyer, who, along withby CNBbest friend Huck Finn (Brad Renfro), must run away and make a pact
never to tell anyone the terrible secret of what they witnessed in
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