Customer Reviews

Borrowers [VHS]

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The BBC adaptation is fantastic, with beautiful performances, production quality, and an unerring faithfulness to the book in spirit, word, and deed. If only the tape were as good. Turner Video's done the shoddy trick of putting this three-hour production on a single tape by "recording" it in EP/SLP. As a result, the picture quality, while watchable, leaves a lot to be desired, and the durability of the tape is questionable. I've owned a copy for only a few years, and it's already got rainbowing deterioration.

This is a movie that can hold up to anyone's standards. It's clean, meaning no bad language or sex of any kind. If you ever read the books you will enjoy these. no movie is as good as the book, but this one does a good job!

My name is hannah enos and will tell you about the borrowers.The borrowers is a wonderful family movie that i am sure children and adults alike will like. one of my faviorite sayings on the borrowers is: " human beans are for borrowers, like bread is for butter". the borrowers have great caractores as well as actors and actress. some of them are arrietty(rebbecca callard), homily (penelope wilton), pod (ian holm) spiller, and george.in the first movie the borrowers live under the grandfather clock,(that is why they are called the "clocks")until arrietty befriends a "human bean", then the clock famliy must flee for safety into the world where there are awful things like rats,weasles and crows, plus there are thousands of bugs which homily smiply hates. but then they meet spiller and it may seem all there troubles are over but wait, are they? the only way to is to whatch the "borrowers".

The Borrowers is a wonderful adaptation of the first two books in Mary Norton's tales of small people who live in the houses of (and borrow from) "human beans". The films are beautifully made with some fine actors (Ian Holm, Sian Phillips) and do a great job of capturing the secretive lives of the Borrowers and of the Edwardian landscapes in which the books are set. The musical accompaniment is also wonderfully atmospheric The only bad thing about this film is the wholly unnecessary and boring interruptions by Richard Lewis, who is never entertaining and totally unsuitable as a narrator/introducer for such a fine series. Buy the videos and fast forward through the Lewis parts!

Long before the American version of the Borrowers came out, we stumbled across this BBC series in our local library. This series is closely matched to the popular Mary Norton series of books by the same name.

After watching it several times, we decided to buy it and add it to our family library of video movies. Books in our family library have to be PG, but not PG-B (B=Boring).

The television series doesn't have extra special effects, but still manages to show all the difficulties of being tiny people in a large world, with "borrowing" as one's only means of employment.

Narrated by Richard Lewis (whose dialogue is a little flat), it tells the story of Arrietty, the spunky pre-teen daughter of Pod and Homily Clock (their family has lived beneath the grandfather Clock for generations). She is lonely - her journal is the only friend she has to talk to, for she may be the last of the Borrowers (they haven't heard from their distant relatives in quite some time).

Because she's the only child, her father begins training her to be a Borrower, much to the chagrin of her mother who never had to borrow for herself. It is much too dangerous work for a girl (her mother thinks), but Arrietty enjoys the adventure and the time spent with her father.

Through her adventures in the big house, she eventually sees, and later introduces herself to, Peter, a human bean (sic) about her age who has been sent to live in the house with his mean aunt. They become friends, but the aunt catches on to the existence of what she thinks are rats living under the floorboards.

This video has two parts, so you're getting about 190 minutes of movie for your dollar. The father is an excellent character actor, Ian Holm. Mother (Penelope Wilton) is quite good, as is Arrietty (Rebecca Callard).

I can't say enough good things about this movie. It is wonderful. You can't help but love the characters. I watch it all the time.

Very good children's movie, far better than the hollywood version. Atmospheric, great characters and performances. Hard to find but worth it.

Buy this, gather the family and lounge in front of the tv, pop some pocorn and pop this in the vcr. Enjoy some family fun time. This has a great story (and the visual design is dated) but that does not take away from the story which is great for all ages. There are are two movies (The Borrowers and The Return of the Borrowers); buy these 2 rare flicks today.

Believably, takes you into the world of the tiny people, 4-inches tall. The Borrowers make some friends, meet some bad-guys, and go on some adventures. Likeable characters. The story keeps your interest. The sequel-film, "Return of the Borrowers" continues the story, and is just as good.

I bought the VHS and copied them onto DVD. It was worth the effort.

The studios should put both these films with Ian Holm on DVD today!!

I liked the 1998-version with John Goodman too; a different story.

The version with Eddie Albert is bad, for being painfully slow, getting off-story, and having a bad script.

The movie was enjoyable, if a little shoddy in the quality of the picture. It was also a bit longer than I think it should be for a kid's movie. However, the story was fun, imaginative, and well put together. I've always enjoyed stories of little people that just might be living under the floorboards!