Linbeymusol
Wonderful character development!
Actuakers
One of my all time favorites.
ChicDragon
It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.
Taraparain
Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.
norden-tha-man
Many who knows a thing or two about the great pirate era will know doubt get annoyed of this television movie on how it isn't historically accurate according to the legend of Blackbeard. To Them I have two things to say:1: Remember that history is always written by the winners. The Brits for one do not like the rest of the world to know the origin of the privateers and how they became the first pirates in America. All records of that time was written to make them seem as villainous as possible (which many of them were) and make the empire seem as noble in opposite. I'm not defending the action of most pirates of that era, I'm just saying it is impossible to know the true and full story.2: So what? This wasn't a true documentary in the stile that it was suppose to inform us, but it is meant to intrigue us and make people interested about the era and this fascinated man. It is much in the same genre of some other BBC production that was made at the same time, like ''Hannibal'' and ''Genghis Khan'', which I also highly recommend. It is meant to be a movie with a documentary style narrative, with good actors and some excellent cinematography. And sense why can't know the true history behind Blackbeard, I can't see how ''lost facts'' should stop you from enjoying this piece.Now, why do I like this movie so much? Well, just like vikings so have pirates always fascinated me. And Blackbeard is the most fascinating pirate of all time (but not the most successful... that honor goes to Bartholomew Roberts). I saw this movie for the first time about 8 years ago, and it's one of those movies I can go back to over and over again.There aren't much in terms of characters in this movie. The the actors playing the crew are not bad by any means, but they are really just there to help portray the man of the title. But that is not really needed, because James Purefoy as Blackbeard could hold up a movie by himself ten times over. Be (sadly) put Ian McShane on his place, perhaps being the best portray of the character since Robert Newton. That he didn't get to play the character in the cinema is a really big lost for us all.The scenery and costumes are also great, and the ships looks amazing. And despite the historical ''missteps'', the movie also makes a great work to learn us some other trivial from the era, like how big the ships really were, instead of the monsters from the PoC- movies.Is it a great movie?... not really, BUT is it a enjoyable one? If you like me love pirates, then HELL YEAH!
mr-insane
I watched it on National Geographic it it was great. I was amused how Teach wanted to fight with music and loved it when he joked with Tom about the whole " Isn't the point of a joke to make people laugh?" thing. It was a pretty accurate telling of Teach. I never figured out what happened to Frenchy though and that really would've been nice to know. This movie shows that pirates were not the loving, funny, comedic "Pirates of the Caribbean" nor the stereotypic pirate that both movies displayed. Though close I'm pretty sure Blackbeard was decapitated during the fight instead of it being removed after though. Still no matter how much you prefer comedies or romances(which you will certainly not find here!) you have to love this movie.
Carl Abrams
POSSIBLE SPOILERS (as it were) INSIDE I just saw this on National Geographic channel, and I was quite pleased with this movie.In our modern day era of crossing the sea via airplanes and large cruise ships and freighters, it's nice to see how, barely 300 years ago, sloops where the cannon ports were only a few inches above the waterline, dared to cross the Atlantic. Also, it nicely showed how a smaller vessel could catch and out sail a much larger one.It's also nice to show that the life of the pirate was not all glamor. Teach was more than adequately portrayed by the same actor that played the Prince in 'A Knights Tale'. The psychosis of Teach (Blackbeard) was that he didn't care about fortune in the least - he just wanted to be remembered. It may seem comedic to us nowadays, but in those days, the sight of someone with slow burning fuses or flames coming from out of his head would've terrified the average person - more so the superstitious sailor.There was only one thing left open, and that was the fate of Frenchy. I ended up watching the ending of this twice to try to figure that out, and didn't see it. There was a lot of historical accuracy, and the costuming and props were dead on. Very well done.
grey-37
With the disclaimer that it was the most accurate portrayal on television, I thought I would do a little lookup. I couldn't find much online, I'm assuming most of the backup documentation is in museum or offline locations.A couple of tidbits I did find online conflict with the narrative, but then again, a great deal of stories conflict. It would be interesting to see how the determination of "most accurate" was made.However... The wife and I have a thing for the age of pirates, and looked forward to this eagerly. We weren't disappointed.My only complaint was the backtracking after commercial breaks. It was kind of like we had to be reminded of what we'd just seen not 60-90 seconds ago.Now that this is no longer in production, I think the database should be updated! I also think that a listing of the rest of the cast would be nice. I'm curious about the actors portraying the prominently displayed members of the crew.
