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Actor Hart Bochner and producer/scriptwriter Robert L. Joseph turn this 1984 television adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises into dull melodrama. In the Hemingway novel, Bochner's character, narrator Jake Barnes, is complex and full of hang-ups, resulting mainly from psychological and physical wounds he suffered in World War I. One injury emasculated him, rendering him impotent. Apparently to show that Barnes has internalized his conflicts, Bochner attempts to play his character as impassive, unwincing, and stoic but comes across as merely listless, apathetic, and just plain boring. And then there is Joseph's script. It revises Hemingway into melodrama, prosaic dialogue, and invented action sequences to please Danielle Steele and Chuck Norris fans. Thus, Hemingway's magnum opus becomes magnum schlock. The film is not a total failure, however. Jane Seymour is chicly alluring as Lady Brett Ashley, who accepts all men for the exquisite pleasure of rejecting them. In addition, the supporting actors are mostly good -- in spite of the lines they must recite -- and the cinematography is superb, displaying France and Spain at their best. Finally, the bullfighting scenes are exciting, a welcome break from the lackluster main plot, and they teach a lesson in symbolism: The matador is Lady Brett, the woman every man chases but no man can catch; the bull represents Lady Brett's frustrated suitors. But these redeeming qualities notwithstanding, the film is a dud overall, teaching still another lesson: When it comes to mediocrity, the sun also sets -- or should.