I was underwhelmed.

Much of the technical detail, period-era costumes and set, the principal photography, the direction was all very good. With notable exceptions, the performances were mostly pretty good too. The exceptions to me were the cartoonish-like depictions of young Paulie and Silvio. (By the way, would Silvio be that much older than Tony? I was surprised by that a bit.) The failing I think lies in the script. Like producer Robert Evans once said; "if it isn't on the page, it sure as hell isn't going to be on the screen."

It felt like it was primarily Chase and company trying to make good on some of the backstories covered in 6 seasons worth of television; i.e. Junior's quipping that Tony never had the makings of a varsity athlete or Johnny Boy shooting the bullet through Livia's beehive hairdo. Most of those types of lines and scenes seemed to me to have no other purpose than to reward a loyal audience with depicted accounts of backstories we had come to know from following the series. As soon as I saw the scene begin in the convertible I even had a sense that he was going to shoot through her hair. I don't think that scene did anything to advance the plot.

A film like this, I think, has to complete the difficult task of being faithful to the series canon but also be able to stand on its' own two feet as a singular work of art. I didn't think it was able to do that. Someone who had never seen the Sopranos would have found this story, I think, shallow and inconclusive.

It didn't seem to pick a direction, the way that Goodfellas follows Henry's journey from outsider to insider to outcast (setting aside how much it aggrandized Hill) - it was partly about Dickie Moltisanti, partly about a young Tony Soprano and partly about the racial divide in Newark of that time. Each an interesting subject on its own, but I don't think the scriptwriter effectively tied any of these elements together.

Altogether, I think it's biggest and most surprising failing is that it simply wasn't memorable. After an episode of the Sopranos, I would be replaying scenes from the last episode in my head for the whole next week. I feel like I've already forgotten most of Many Saints of Newark.

For me, it's a solid 2 out of 4 stars. I'll watch it again on Netflix on some future rainy day, but I won't be going out of my way to see it again.