So, we watched the 2011 one. It got excellent reviews on imdb except for a few who felt the way I did. These are my opinions, and I totally respect the opinions of those who loved this version.
Pros:
--Jane looked good. Very plain.
--Scenery was good.
--Many of the lines were directly from the book.
--Adele is played by a petite young girl (as opposed to the Ciaran Hinds version where Adele is taller than Jane).
Cons:
--Boring. It was David's first exposure to Jane Eyre, and probably his last. He was bored, and he usually likes British stuff, even Jane Austin or Bronte. He won't watch that genre more than one time, but he had a problem keeping up with it. I don't blame him.
--Rochester isn't ugly enough (Ciaran Hinds was perfect for it, Timothy Dalton wasn't -- even though that's one of my favorite productions)
--In the beginning, they go back and forth between her childhood and present day. For him, that was confusing--and it would have been for me as well if I didn't know the story backwards and forwards.
--Not good character development. I don't know how it's possible, but they really didn't develop the characters well. We didn't know or care about St. John or his sisters. The most 'thorough' J.E. is the Timothy Dalton one, and it's very long. But even the shorter ones still are able to develop characters. This one didn't. I found it almost a chore to watch.
--They didn't include some key lines between Rochester and Jane which would have really helped show that Jane was strong.
Ironically, I watched the deleted scenes, and probably half of them would have made the movie better.
