L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables: Fire & Dew

I have faithfully watched all of the Anne installments. As I have a strong attachment to all things Anne Shirley, Green Gables, and Avonlea related.

But, and that's a huge sized BUT. This one just did not cut the mustard, so to speak.

The movie starts out with Anne as a child and ages her so rapidly your head spins like a whirlygig!

Bless their hearts for reviving Anne - but they should just stop.

Megan Follows will always be the one true Anne. Go and re-watch those!

Anne Shirley (Ella Ballentine) is growing older. Her teacher Miss Stacy encourages her to study to be a teacher at the Queen's Academy in Charlottetown. Infuriated, her nemesis Gilbert Blythe joins her while her best friend Diana Barry does not. Matthew (Martin Sheen)'s bank is under investigation as his health starts to deteriorate.

Ella is a solid Anne and it's great to have her grow up while portraying the iconic character. She's a good little actress. Diana is not as prominent. This does need a better Gilbert. There is no one better than Martin Sheen and he's great in his scenes. This works as a stand alone and as a sequel.

I've watched all the continuations in this series (as well as older contributions to the Anne story), and with each subsequent offering instead of growing on me they are dying on me for lack of story, script, acting. They've just become emotionless, shallow, simplistic, rote daytime soap level productions. You can't tell a story with only period costuming as your main foundation.

I grew up on the old Anne of Green Gables and loved them. I heard such negative reviews of the Netflix version so I thought I would try this. I thought it was very well done and the characters were beautifully portrayed. I loved Martin Sheen as Matthew and thought all the other characters were great as well. It felt true to the original but also fresh and not just a copy cat.

Of this latest Anne trilogy, Fire and Dew (daft name aside) is the best of the bunch. Even the dreadfully miscast actor playing Gilbert seems to have picked up some rudimentary acting skills since the first movie. Which is a blessing.

In this third outing, Anne waves goodbye to pokey old Avonlea and sets out for the bright lights of Charlottetown, where she spends most of her time memorising latin prose and avoiding Gilbert Blythe.

Is this new Anne (Ella Ballentine) in the same league as everyone's favourite, Megan Follows? Of course not. But she does fine. Just fine.

Note: This is also the most emotional of the three films, so beware, you may shed a tear.