cutesd This film is waaaaay too long and is bogged down in unnecessary details. I believe the effort was to have fully formed and well established characters but what we end up with is a film that feels like 90% introductions and 10% plot. Every cast member is a well-known actor so we think they're all important ... except that a lot of them aren't to the telling of the story.So Wyatt Earp ends up being boring and meandering instead of a thrilling western. Not worth the runtime.

dfwesley I am not a Kevin Costner fan and think he is the most one dimensional actor around. Sometimes his delivery in this movie struck me as amateurish. I thought he wasn't bad in DANCING WITH WOLVES but that was his best effort.I had to smile at the good guys wearing black and looking like morticians,(which they were in a sense). All that hot desert weather and they were in heat absorbing black.The scenes with wives and lovers were tedious and added little to the film.Frankly, any movie this long should be classified as epic, and this one certainly did not fall into that category. I can think of a good handful of westerns without much effort, superior to this one.

eric262003 In the old West one of the most heavily milked upon subject that every fan of Western history will always spring into mind was the event that happened on October 26, 1881, that was the infamous showdown at the O.K. Corral located in Tombstone, Arizona. For many years, filmmakers have been making adaptations and documentaries about this fearsome battle that if you've seen enough of these, it's very hard for you to forget about. In 1993 and 1994, two movies spawned upon this topic came out one after the other that were pretty high in terms of budget. Those two film were "Tombstone" from 1993 and "Wyatt Earp" from 1994. In a sheer twist of irony, both films were being made pretty much simultaneously and nearing butting heads around the same locations. And while George Cosmatos' "Tombstone" emphasized on the epic gunfight itself, Lawrence Kasdan's "Wyatt Earp" concentrated on the main character of "Wyatt Earp". From his humble beginnings to his deadly showdown and everything else in between Kasdan left nothing out. In 1993, "Tombstone" received a substantial amount of praise and well-deserved accolades and was opened more to big box office success. Warner Brothers had to stall "Wyatt Earp" from its release months later as to avoid from being on a competitive level with "Tombstone". When "Wyatt Earp" was released in June of 1994, it still had the warm reception it had like "Tombstone", but the box office had a lower impact. My guess was that it came out too soon and people were still buzzing about "Tombstone" and just weren't freshening up to this more character driven film. And though it remains the kid brother to "Tombstone", it still doesn't mean this movie was terrible. In fact for a biopic, it is a very engaging film that deserves the humble credit it had. For a movie that crawls over the three hour hurdle, this movie literally chronicles Wyatt Earp from his childhood era as he wanted to free himself from his family life to move onto bigger and better things. We watch as he was vital in the building of the famous transcontinental railway lines even down to his personal life from the loss of his first wife his alcoholic phase from becoming an outlaw to throwing his evil ways away to becoming a lawman which eventually led him and his brothers to the big shooting party at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. One of the idiosyncrasies that makes this film special was that Kasdan and co-writer Dan Gordon really put a lot of thought and a lot of care for the material and there's never a dull scene and the narrative remains at a steady pace throughout. The performances were really accurate in it portrayals. Kevin Costner who at the time seemed like an aficionado in the Western genre was the perfect casting choice for the role of the titular character. He just felt his comfort zone in this very complex role. Though Costner carries the heavy cargo in this role doesn't mean that the supporting characters were insignificant. Round out the cast Dennis Quaid was equally riveting as another will known lawman named Doc Holiday. He even molded himself to lose 30 lbs. to look like a sickly man who has tuberculosis. Other well known performers include Michael Madsen as Wyatt's brother Virgil, Gene Hackman as his father Nicholas, Mark Harmon as lawman Johnny Behan, Catherine O'Hara as Allie, Bill Pullman as deputy Ed Masterson, Tom Sizemore as his brother Bat and Isabella Rosselini as a hooker named Big Nose Kate. In spite of this electrifying cast Kasdan ensures that no one gets usurped and no one is left out. The cinematography by Oscar nominee Owen Roizman stands out very well too. Roizman manages to make the landscapes look and feel quite authentic. If I was to say there was a weakness, it would have to be the length of this film. I'm not going to whine about the length, but even for a patient man, this film can be quite long and not very comfortable on the buttocks either. My advice, bring a soft cushion to watch this film, it is that long. After all's said and done, "Wyatt Earp" succeeds in being epic and provocative and very rich in both action and character. It displays a crew that enjoyed their work and the heart put into it. The characters were rich and the acting was superb. Sure it was lengthy, but it will still tug at your heartstrings. It's not better than "Tombstone", but equally captivating.

ron flett It's obvious that the writer of this little piece is not old enough to have seen all of the Wyatt Earp movies. It shows when he says something to the effect that Val Kilmer's is the best version of Doc Holliday. The Val Kilmer outing sucks when compared to Kirk Douglas' rendition. Even Victor Mature's Doc Holiday is better than Val Kilmer's. I suggest that the writer see ALL of the Wyatt Earp movies before making such rash and unfounded claims. As far as who made the better Wyatt Earp, again I'll have to go with the older actors. I'd pick Henry Fonda first, Burt Lancaster second, then Kevin Costner, and Kurt Russell in forth place.