Reviews

If you suspend some disbelief, and just sit back and enjoy, you're in for a good time.

I'm going to concentrate on the special effects, because they're so outstanding, and are an essential part of the film.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS: The amount of detail in this stop-action is beyond astonishing. Little things, like Joe tapping his fingers, are everywhere. A wide array of facial expressions that help give Joe a personality. The continuity of fast action sequences like the wrangling scene, and specifically when Joe plucks a rider out of the saddle while the horse is at full gallop. It is still believable when viewed in slow motion, with Joe's fingers grabbing the guy's shirt. WHAT you say? Yes, you read that right. The line between live-action and stop-action sometimes disappears.

This same continuity exists in the chaos scene when Joe tosses lions. Joe picks one up, does a windup with it and then tosses it, left to right. The next thing you see is REAL lion, obviously having been really thrown by something, hitting a floor at about 15 mph and sliding/scrambling about 30 or more feet in abject terror.

And the list goes on and on.....

What's so great about this movie? Seriously. I don't get it. First, the love subplot is just wasting time. It adds NOTHING to anything related to a mutiny. I suppose it was considered necessary "character development." It's just plain annoying at its obvious contrivance.

Bogie is way too old for the part.

As for the mutiny itself. Well given the circumstances, and the fact that the captain was frozen with fear and stress, and incapable of making ANY decision at crunch time, it was really hardly any mutiny at all. Just a subordinate officer taking over for an incapacitated captain. The same as if old Bogie had just collapsed from a heart attack.

And the end? The crew made to FEEL guilty because they hadn't made nice with the captain? Well anytime anyone dare questioned him, the captain accused them of insubordination and threatened arrest. So it makes absolutely ZERO sense.

And the list goes on and on.....

The entire film is an insult to the intelligence.

Oh wow. In a bad way. This one was a real groaner. It was somewhat tolerable until near the end. And then it was one headshake moment after another. And I had high hopes in the beginning, with Rourke, Rogers and Hopkins in the cast. And the cable movie guide had given it three out of four stars. So I thought why hadn't I heard of this movie? And then I found out why.

This is just pure Hollywood, formulaic, intelligence-insulting crap. Don't engage your brain. But even then you'll be suffering through it. Why weren't the producers and the director embarrassed to make this trash? Egads!