This all-time cast elevating the script at every turn with the entertaining narrative and great technical experience makes The Bounty a new favorite sea-set film of mine, even with other adaptations of this story existing with big names attached like Clark Gable and Charles Laughton in one and Marlon Brando in another I decided to trust this most recent adaptation to do this story justice and I’m happy to say, at least from someone who hasn’t read the book’s perspective, it did. It’s hard to understate just how amazing this cast is, seeing Hopkins and Day-Lewis ho back and forth in those dinner scenes was an absolute delight and others like elderly Laurence Olivier and a young Liam Neeson for a few minutes were great as well. There’s a glaring name I didn’t mention there and it’s Mel Gibson, if I was to have a knock at all in terms of the casting I’d question why Mel got the call for this british drama but as an american I didn’t have too rough a time with his accent (but the fact that i noticed it at all probably means it’s horrific) and acting wise it’s actually one of my new favorite performances of his, it just comes in a shadow of a plethora of much better performances. The best of them was unsurprisingly Anthony Hopkins who proves to me once again why he’s one of the best actors alive, he had a great captain’s screen presence comparable to something like Gregory Peck in Moby Dick but where that performance was an over-dramatic caricature this was a realistic version of that which I really loved. The script didn’t have to do all that much but it was effective all the way through, the writing kept me entertained where with weaker or less interesting writing the movie could’ve gotten quite stale so I have to commend Robert Bolt for this adaptation even if it wasn’t anything groundbreaking. It also doesn’t shock me one bit to learn the composer of this movie also did the decade-defining work in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, I was initially shocked by the Social Network-y Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross type synth sound going on here but it fit the vibe perfectly. The photography is also really gorgeous with some impressive wide shots of the boat at sea, beautiful beaches and sunsets, and impressively filmed and edited action sequences, the quality of the technical experience was ultimately why I ended up starting with this newer adaptation so I was happy to see that choice paying off. That’s about it for The Bounty, I can see why this would fall into the boring category for some as it’s a drama-driven historical ‘action’ that, if you’re looking for something like Pirates of the Caribbean, might be a little dull, but for me and my taste this worked like a charm and I’m already excited to see how they managed to adapt this story going back all the way to 1935.
This all-time cast elevating the script at every turn with the entertaining narrative and great technical experience makes The Bounty a new favorite sea-set film of mine, even with other adaptations of this story existing with big names attached like Clark Gable and Charles Laughton in one and Marlon Brando in another I decided to trust this most recent adaptation to do this story justice and I’m happy to say, at least from someone who hasn’t read the book’s perspective, it did. It’s hard to understate just how amazing this cast is, seeing Hopkins and Day-Lewis ho back and forth in those dinner scenes was an absolute delight and others like elderly Laurence Olivier and a young Liam Neeson for a few minutes were great as well. There’s a glaring name I didn’t mention there and it’s Mel Gibson, if I was to have a knock at all in terms of the casting I’d question why Mel got the call for this british drama but as an american I didn’t have too rough a time with his accent (but the fact that i noticed it at all probably means it’s horrific) and acting wise it’s actually one of my new favorite performances of his, it just comes in a shadow of a plethora of much better performances. The best of them was unsurprisingly Anthony Hopkins who proves to me once again why he’s one of the best actors alive, he had a great captain’s screen presence comparable to something like Gregory Peck in Moby Dick but where that performance was an over-dramatic caricature this was a realistic version of that which I really loved. The script didn’t have to do all that much but it was effective all the way through, the writing kept me entertained where with weaker or less interesting writing the movie could’ve gotten quite stale so I have to commend Robert Bolt for this adaptation even if it wasn’t anything groundbreaking. It also doesn’t shock me one bit to learn the composer of this movie also did the decade-defining work in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, I was initially shocked by the Social Network-y Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross type synth sound going on here but it fit the vibe perfectly. The photography is also really gorgeous with some impressive wide shots of the boat at sea, beautiful beaches and sunsets, and impressively filmed and edited action sequences, the quality of the technical experience was ultimately why I ended up starting with this newer adaptation so I was happy to see that choice paying off. That’s about it for The Bounty, I can see why this would fall into the boring category for some as it’s a drama-driven historical ‘action’ that, if you’re looking for something like Pirates of the Caribbean, might be a little dull, but for me and my taste this worked like a charm and I’m already excited to see how they managed to adapt this story going back all the way to 1935.
