ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Robert J. Maxwell If you like "Amadeus" you'll like this because it's from the same mold. We watch Beethoven (Harris) and one of his pretty young acolytes (Diane Kruger) during the last years of his death, when he was still writing music almost deaf. He dies in an epiphany, smiling, after reciting the ending of his last piece to Kruger. At peace at last. It's "Tod und Verklärung" before the letter.It accords with what little I know of Beethoven's life and character. A tempestuous Romantic, he could excoriate friends and relatives savagely, then make nice after a cooling off.I suspect that the part Diane Kruger plays, Anna Holz, a student who becomes an assistant, nurse, and obsession to the ailing giant, is made up, but I don't know for sure. I like her. She's ALMOST beautiful in a Nordic way, but not quite. She was born Diane Heidkrüger in Germany and, speaking as your anthropologist, I have to say she looks German. A good actress as well.Ed Harris doesn't look too much like the portraits and death mask but he's fine in the role and lends it a mercurial bipolar quality, eyes alight, stomping around half clothed, bathing by pouring a bucket of water over his head and flooding the apartment below.The film features a lot of his music, and it's well done. The climax is his conducting the first performance of his ninth symphony. As usual, it's necessary to use only the last movement and, at that, the tenor part is dropped, but it's okay because the music itself is glorious. It can make your hair stand on end. Whether or not a viewer knows the passages he'll recognize them from movies like "Die Hard" and from toothpaste commercials.There are many similarities to "Amadeus." Instead of Solieri there is Anna Holz. "Amadeus" went out of its way to make Mozart colorful, what with that silly giggle and Tom Hulce running around farting. The writers didn't go that far with Beethoven although there is one scene in which he plays one of Anna Holz's compositions and says it sounds like somebody passing wind and goes on to accompany the piece with raspberries.I prefer "Copying Beethoven" to "Amadeus" because the showpieces in the latter are mostly from Mozart's operas and I'm not an opera fan, and because Beethoven's music is powerful and even majestic. His late string quartets, derided by the public, are still sometimes nearly overwhelming. The guy meant business. And you know his influence has pervaded the musical community when a jazz musician like Charlie Mingus can say that he loves those difficult quartets.

violetta1485 No, it didn't happen that way, and yes, it's derivative, with the obnoxious genius trope from "Amadeus" and the young girl inspires jaded artist trope from "Girl with a Pearl Earring." Why is it still worth it? Because it makes you feel something of what it is like to write music--even if you don't write music. It also makes you understand what it is like to be around a genius, not just from the main (fictional) character of Anna, but even from minor characters, i.e., the neighbor who finds Beethoven a nuisance personally, but gets to hear all his music before anyone else. It also gives you some idea of Beethoven's matter- of-fact acceptance of his dual nature, that he can write such heavenly music while being an utter boor as a man.

dw-stefaan I went to see the movie knowing it was a fantasy, a plot written by someone not pretending to biographical. I searched to understand more about Beethoven. I've read several Biographies about this genius and his bad temper. And then this movie, takes me into his music, tells me things about his music, words can't grasp. To me this movie is a must for anyone who wants a peace of the puzzle to understand his music and the man behind the music. A more fun way to understand some things about this mysterious man. You can comment the music choice, or the story being fantasy but that doesn't diminish the fact that the movie gives you some insight in the music, the man, the composer.

fred-houpt The fascination we have with Mozart and Beethoven endure and for good reasons. Such heights of musical genius are more fully appreciated, beloved and enjoyed now than in their own days. Their lives also fascinate us. Mozart, the most precocious and preternaturally blessed lad and Beethoven, the storming colossus, trail blazing iconoclast, rebel and first firmly independent artist. Sadly, both have been treated rather shabbily by writers and film makers who have strangely succumbed to myth making or ridiculous exaggerations. All the more odd is that post-Amadeus (the film) that a director and writer would take up the theme of Beethoven's last few years and in spite of a wealth of excellent recent scholarship invent a portrait that was more fabrication than history. In some ways this film is a 'theme and variation' on his life, and that's fine I suppose. I was disappointed to see another fantasy rather than a bio-pic on what the man was really like.There are hints here and there in the film, to be sure. His caustic and volcanic outbursts and overwrought mood swings. His willingness to invent brand new musical thoughts, seemingly out of the transcendent ether, not worrying a jot that no one in his time period would understand, keenly keeping his eyes on the future. In that, he was correct.While I am reminded that this film like "Amadeus" is not a biography and that it caters to those who might not know much about him, those who have more than a surface knowledge of his life will be let down and saddened by this. The actors are all excellent. I do not believe that Harris correctly portrayed Beethoven. During those last few years, he was quite sick, basically unable to hear anyone talking to him even to his face. Those who were allowed close to him had to write their words in note books (this was a foolish and glaring error on the directors part). He was often filthy, did not shave for weeks on end, smelled awful, looked worse, frightened his neighbors with all his screeching and howling while he worked on the mighty ninth. It just does not come across. Perhaps one day someone will make an honest portrait of the great man as he really was and leave all the Hollywoodish garbage where it belongs.This and the other fantasy film "Immortal Beloved" are entertaining as films go but do not do the subject matter justice.