tombstone (george p. cosmatos, 1993)

Tombstone and Wyatt Earp with Kevin Costner and often tied together, as they tell the same historic story and came out within a year of each other. I've always considered Tombstone to be far superior, although I realize now that I never actually saw the Costner version ... watching a 3+ hour Kevin Costner western isn't quite on my to-do list. My memory of Tombstone was positive, and I looked forward to a revisit.

The film's beginning is promising, as we meet the Earps, the bad guys, and a variety of other characters. Too many characters, perhaps, since most of them never make much of an impact. While it's not nearly as long as Wyatt Earp, Tombstone goes on forever. We get the famous shootout at the OK Corral, look at the clock, and realize there's still an hour to go.

Basically, Tombstone is kinda boring. But it has one thing that raises it to a much higher standard: Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday. Kilmer is tremendous, idiosyncratic, stealing all of his scenes. Without Kilmer, the film would be forgotten by now. With Kilmer, my memory was fooled into thinking the movie is better than it is.

Comments

[Tomas]

100% agree. I saw it again (or most of it) last year. Even though I probably hadn't seen it since the mid 90s, it sat really well in my memory. I was surprised how much wasn't there. Although Kurt Russell does good, too, even though he's basically my idea of Kurt Russell. But Val!