Product Details

• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Letterboxed, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 2
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: April 27, 1995
• Run Time: 212 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (174 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303431038
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #105,601 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This massive, in-depth study of the dark Western icon comes off with mixed results. Trying to capture the whole life, (warts and all) of the lawman-criminal-brother-fortune hunter, director Lawrence Kasdan gains points for sheer scale, giving us a rich epic painted in dark colors with gritty settings. But the visual poetry and extensive foreshadowing ruin the dramatic drive. Some scenes have as much impact as stalker movies; you're just waiting for someone to get knocked off. As Earp, Kevin Costner is not afraid to look rumpled and play colorlessly (as in The Bodyguard), but it saps the energy of this 3-hour-plus film. The only relief is Dennis Quaid as a droll Doc Holiday, a much more engaging character. New faces Linden Ashby and Joanna Going (as an Earp brother and a lover, respectively) are solid finds, though the remainder of the female cast is barely given anything to do. Best is the first half, with Costner, as hip as he was in his Silverado days, going through a series of ups and downs until he accidentally finds his profession. Great set design (Ida Random) utilizes dozens of similar settings that always look distinctive. Recommended to fans of the star and the genre, but the story never justifies its length. --Doug Thomas

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Flawed but impressive epic western comes to DVD, May 23, 2004

By 

WTDK "If at first the idea is not absurd, the... (My Little Blue Window, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wyatt Earp (Two-Disc Special Edition) (DVD)

Larger than life and with twice as many brothers, "Wyatt Earp" struts onto the DVD scene in a "Special Edition" that looks stunning but is less filling than one might have expected. This sprawling episodic tale begins with Wyatt as a child preparing to run away from home and join the Union army like his brothers Virgil and James. His father (Gene Hackman in a brief but powerful performance)catches him as he leaves and returns him back home. While Wyatt clearly yearns from the adventure he feels his brothers are experiencing, his father knows the truth about war and sets him straight.

Later, James and Virgil return home both exhausted and beat up from serving in the army. Their father has put on his traveling shoes and announces that the family will be moving West where there's opportunity for a lawyer and rich land is ready to be farmed.

Wyatt after many trials and tribulations ends up out west as a lawman. He manages to interest his brothers in coming out to help clean up Dodge City as well. We also get the thunderous conflict at the OK Corral as part of the conclusion of the film and witness a wonderful performance by Dennis Quaid as Doc Holliday. While the narrative is a bit too episodic and flawed, the film manages to retain one's interest throughout it's 190 minute running time due to Costner's unassuming portrayal as Wyatt. The real highlight, though, is Quaid as Doc capturing the fragile gunfighter as he fights the consumption that eats him alive.

With the long wait for "Wyatt Earp" to appear on DVD, one would have hoped to have a special edition with a commentary from director Lawrence Kasdan, star Costner and a look back at the film's reception when it was first released a decade ago. Unfortunately, the Warner Special Edition sticks to the basics for the most part: we get the original 190 minute theatrical cut of the film (sans the extended scenes that were added to the video version); two documentaries one "new" one that includes vintage interviews and the other a 1994 TV special; "lifted scenes", i.e., the footage included in the special video edition and the theatrical trailer.

Let's stark with the good stuff first. The stunning anamorphic widescreen transfer finely does justice to Kasdan's epic vision for this larger than life western biography. The remastered 5.1 sound captures just about every nuance from the original theatrical exhibition 10 years ago. Honestly, "Wyatt Earp" hasn't sounded this good since it was first released in 1994.

The negatives are few but worth noting. The documentaries are pretty good although a bit too brief. Perhaps Kasdan preferred his original theatrical cut to the extended version. That could explain why these sequences show up on the second disc and aren't integrated into the film. The lack of a commentary track is a big minus for the disc, though, as 1)Knowing how the film compared to the life of Earp would have been fascintating and 2) Kasdan's plans while shooting the film and comments would have been welcome.

With the recent deluxe release of "Open Range", I would have hoped for better from this release. On the other hand, great care was used in transferring this for DVD and the extras are roughly what "Unforgiven" received when it was re-released. Kudos to Warner for such a marvelous looking DVD although, again, more extras should have been included.

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wyatt Earp was a Man, December 14, 1999

By 

William R. Graham (Rancho Santa Margarita, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wyatt Earp (Widescreen Expanded Edition) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A lot of people forget that Wyatt Earp was a real man who had more courage and integrity then most people you will ever know. This movie is a pretty accurate portrayl of that man. Kevin Costner and Dennis Quaid (Doc Holliday) do a superb job, although the supporting cast has a lot to be desired. This movie differs from the movie "Tombstone", in that it portrays a lot of Wyatt's life from being a teenager during the Civil War to his and Josie's adventure to the Alaskan gold fields near the turn of the century. "Tombstone" deals primarily with the happenings in Wyatt's life in that one town, which ironically dealt with less than 2 years of his long adventurous life. I liked this film because it dealt with an approximate 35 year time span of Wyatt's life, and the movie is long enough to dipict this. There are a lot of historical accuracies in the movie which include proper representations of places and dialogue such as what is said on the way to and during the gunfight. The inaccuracies are easily overlooked such as Virgil being shot in the wrong arm and the reference to "Johnny behind the duece" as "Tommy." All in all though, a good film about the life of a great man, Wyatt Earp.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dramatic and Entertaining, May 4, 2002

By 

Kate (Naperville, Illinois USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wyatt Earp (Widescreen Expanded Edition) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Historical inaccuracies aside, this movie was the best I've seen in a long while. Kevin Costner was even colder than usual (as in "For the Love of the Game"), an expressionless look on his face for much of the movie, but anything else would not have done justice to the character. The supporting cast was unremarkable, but Dennis Quaid as Doc Holliday was incredible...in my opinion, he stole the show and deserved much more screen time. While many of the Earp brothers (excluding Wyatt, of course) were faceless and often difficult if not impossible to tell apart, Quaid captured Doc Holliday's character in every action--speaking, riding, making one of those cynical and hilarious one-liners (Like when Wyatt confides in Doc that he is his closest friend, and Holliday replies, after a long silence, "Shut up," or when he comments that Wyatt wants to be a lawman and an outlaw, getting "the best of both worlds."). It took me a considerable amount of time, at least an hour, to finally believe the video case and conclude that Doc Holliday was in fact played by Dennis Quaid. How did that large, handsome, all-american actor from "Frequency" manage to pull off a skinny, dying man? And that voice...I loved the voice of Doc Holliday, and would rewind the tape sometimes to listen again. Rich and deep, it was the only thing that ultimatly conviced me that Holliday was played by Quaid.
Undoubtably a movie worth seeing, even more than once, I recommend Wyatt Earp to anyone.