wyatt earp has a lot to tell and little to say .
this story of the legendary lawman runs three hours and nine minutes and that’s too long for this epic-wannabe that plays more like a tv mini-series than a movie .
the story opens on the earp family farm , with young wyatt ready to run away from home .
he wants to fight in the civil war , but his dad ( hackman ) has different ideas and wants his son to study law .
time passes and wyatt heads west , returns home to marry , and , after a spell , begins his career in law enforcement .
by the time he ( costner ) and his brothers ( madsen , david andrews , and linden ashby ) arrive in tombstone , wyatt has tried his hand at everything from hunting buffalo to dealing cards .
wyatt earp is very appealing in places– such as cast , costumes , and cinematography– but an overstated story and overpowered score deaden most of the emotional impact .
who can be moved by scene after scene after scene of swelling strings and suffocating speeches ?
somber is fine– just ask clint eastwood– but this film that boasts not one , not two , but three , count ’em three , hammy death scenes !
still , a little bit of earp goes a long way and the life and times of the legendary lawman are from uninteresting stuff .
his , uh , unusual relations with women , for example , are an intriguing contrast to his character’s credo of ” nothing counts as much as blood . ”
equally amusing is a buffalo-hunting ( and skinning ! )
sequence that is decidedly non-pc .
director lawrence kasdan takes a refreshingly realistic approach to the gunplay .
the infamous gunfight at the ok corral is both brutal and brief , devoid of almost any theatrics .
don’t look for much glorified violence here .
despite some large exclamation points in the story , the characters * do * come to life .
the diverse cast includes everyone from betty buckley ( ! ) to mackenzie astin ( ! ! ) .
kevin costner is very good in the title role .
dances with whitney nevers get as steely as the role requires , though , but his transformation from lighthearted law student to stoic sheriff is fun to watch .
he was tougher in a perfect world .
his foil is dennis quaid , who pulled a deniro by losing 40+ pounds to play the tubercular terror doc holliday .
gaunt * and * gamely , he’s a scene stealer who’s seen too little .
other familiar faces include tom sizemore ( looking like bruce mcgill ) , bill pullman ( looking like jeff daniels ) , and lea thompson ( looking like someone other than lea thompson ) .
both gene hackman and isabella rosselini appear and disappear like magic , while late entries catherine o’hara and jobeth williams are surprisingly solid .
though the story and score should’ve tried ” less is more , ” all other credits are technical tops .
production designer ida random , art director gary wissner , and costume designer colleen atwood are some of the vips who helped spend what must’ve been an enormous budget .
clearly no expense was spared .