The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993)

Huckleberry Finn is a young boy in the 1840's, who runs away from home, and floats down the Mississippi River. He meets a run away slave named Jim and the two undertake a series of ... See full summary »

Director:

Stephen Sommers

Writers:

Mark Twain (novel), Stephen Sommers (screenplay)

Stars:

Elijah Wood, Courtney B. Vance, Robbie Coltrane

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Elijah Wood	...	Huck Finn
Courtney B. Vance	...	Jim
Robbie Coltrane	...	The Duke
Jason Robards	...	The King
Ron Perlman	...	Pap Finn
Dana Ivey	...	Widow Douglas
Anne Heche	...	Mary Jane Wilks
James Gammon	...	Deputy Hines
Paxton Whitehead	...	Harvey Wilks
Tom Aldredge	...	Dr. Robinson
Laura Bell Bundy	...	Susan Wilks (as Laura Bundy)
Curtis Armstrong	...	Country Jake
Mary Louise Wilson	...	Miss Watson
Frances Conroy	...	Scrawny Shanty Lady
Danny Tamberelli	...	Ben Rodgers (as Daniel Tamberelli)

Storyline

Huckleberry Finn is a young boy in the 1840's, who runs away from home, and floats down the Mississippi River. He meets a run away slave named Jim and the two undertake a series of adventures based on the Picaresque novel by Mark Twain. As the story progresses the duo exploit an array of episodic enterprises, while Huckleberry slowly changes his views of bigotry. Along the way, Huck and Jim meet the King and Duke, who ultimately send the protagonists towards a different route on their journey. As Huck begins to have a change of heart, he gradually begins to distinguish between right and wrong, and conclusively, Huck is faced with the morale dilemma between the world's prejudice, of which he's grown up with, and the lessons Jim has taught him throughout the story about the evils of racism.

---

Plot Keywords:

mississippi river | river | slave | first kiss | con | 

---

Taglines:

For anyone who has ever dreamed of running away from it all.

---

Genres:

Adventure | Comedy | Drama | Family

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for some mild violence and language

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English French

Release Date:

2 April 1993 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Filming Locations:

Jefferson Military College - Highway 61, Washington, Mississippi, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$6,500,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$24,103,594 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Walt Disney Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Tom Sawyer has just one shot in this version of the film where he yells "Go for the glory!", even though he is a major character in Mark Twain's book. The actor who says "Go for the glory, Huck!" at 03:43 on the DVD is Danny Tamberelli who is listed in the end credits as playing "Ben Rodgers". At 03:45, another boy says "Ya, go for the glory", but Tom Sawyer, who has a large roll in the ending of the book that is not in the film, does not appear in the end credits.

---

Goofs

When Huck Finn is walking with Billy Grangerford (at 45:05 to 45:07) to a brick outbuilding where a new slave is chained, you can see the brake lights of a blue mini van in the bottom left quarter of the screen - look to the left of the tree trunk, under the shrubbery.

---

Quotes

Huck Finn: [Jim appears wearing a silly African costume and looks disgusted] What in hell's bells are you supposed to be?
Jim: The King said I was a Swahili warrior. He even taught me some Swahili or what he said was Swahili. Sounded like a pig in heat to me.

---

Connections

Version of Tom Sawyer (1917)

---

Soundtracks

"String Quartet No.17 'Jagd' in B-Flat major, K.458"
Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Arranged by Dante Progliese
Courtesy of Hollywood Film Music Libraly

User Reviews

I've yet to see a perfect film version of Twain's excellent story, but this version is still quite alright

I have read the popular novel "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain and I found it to be an instant classic and a book definitely worth my time. When it comes to movie adaptations, I've seen very few. The 1993 version titled "The Adventures of Huck Finn" stars a young Elijah Wood as Huckleberry and Courtney B. Vance as Jim and also featured in the cast are some other well-known faces such as Ron Perlman, Jason Robards, Robbie Coltrane, and James Gammon. Overall, with this star-laden cast, the movie is quite entertaining in its own way. Like other films I can think of, it's beginning made little sense and happened a little too suddenly with no room for proper pacing or development. But once this had gone by, I did find myself enjoying the movie quite a bit.

Wood was, and still is a fine young actor and his performance as Huckleberry was noteworthy. I did like Courney B. Vance's performance as Jim and I think he rendered and portrayed the character with absolute perfection. After him, I did like Jason Robards and Robbie Coltrane as the bumbling con artists who call themselves the king and the duke. Ron Perlman was also a good choice to play Huckleberry's deranged father, unfortunately he wasn't given enough screen time to show his quintessential talents for the role and he wasn't quite involved in the story enough as he was in the book.

One thing that did disappoint me was that the screenwriters wrote out the character of Tom Sawyer, probably due to concern of containing too many characters for a 108-minute film. So I can understand the filmmakers' decision and accept it. Maybe the inclusion would have slowed the movie down, maybe not. But all and all, I did very much enjoy "The Adventures of Huck Finn" and although it is not a perfect adaptation of Mark Twain's excellent book, I still enjoyed it.