Hottoceame The Age of Commercialism

Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

popnruss To the Ends of the Earth is an exceptionally well written, directed, and acted film. It is probably the best sea voyage film I have ever seen. And I have see all three versions of Mutiny on the Bounty. The writers had an excellent trilogy by William Golding to work from. Benedict Cumberbatch is tremendous as the naive, somewhat pompous, self possessed Mr. Talbot. Jared Harris is formidable as Captain Anderson. The supporting cast is equally as talented, richly portraying characters from the early 19th century. However the real leading "character" is the ship, tossed and turned, battered and beaten. It determines the fate of all those on board.

jackrawlins I found this mini-series unwatchable. All the people are various degrees of appalling, so there is no one to care about. The shipboard scenes are gritty, so if you think dirt equals authenticity, you'll love it, but I was completely unconvinced. The ship is absurdly roomy and often deserted, and the crew completely without discipline and often drunk, which ship's companies simply were not allowed to be. Cumberbatch is his usual icy, callous self, which works for others but not for me. Scenes of ship handling, sail handling, or the logistics of ship governance are almost nonexistent. The focus is entirely on the middle-class boors, hypocrites, and prigs who make up the paying passengers. The precise opposite of the splendid Master and Commander, this series seems to set out to document exactly how repulsive and boring ship voyages in the Napoleon era could be.

N_animator First off, I randomly found this show on Netflix and decided to watch it when I saw the casting had Benedict Cumberbatch and Sam Neil. I had never heard of this, so I went into this completely blind and unbiased.Second, I've never read the books that this mini-series is based on, so I can't tell if it's faithful to the source material.Benedict Cumberbatch does a very good job playing as the snobby aristocrat, Edmund Talbot, who only thinks about himself and his own ambitions, and he does a very good job of portraying a man who is having difficulties keeping his aristocratic posture on board a ship that is full of lies, deceit and danger. There are some performances I find off- putting, like when Edmund meets Marion and for no real good reason goes absolutely insanely in love with her, to the extent that he tries to abandon ship to follow her. Maybe it's better explained in the books, but I just found it cringing.Sam Neil is among the actors who are prominently placed next to Benedict on the casting list, but it seems it was more to just draw people in with celebrity power since he is only really prominent in the last half of the third episode. Charles Dance does a brief appearance in the second episode as Sir Henry Somerset, but he too is given very little to do. Overall is just feel like wasted actors who could have been casted in more impacting roles.The story and drama itself is well done. I felt myself glued to the screen to follow what was going to happen. Who was holding big secrets and who was stabbing who in the back. Added to that is the claustrophobia of being on a single ship in the middle of the vast ocean with nowhere to go, forcing characters to confront each other. The story is well told and the actors does a very good of showing the desperation and drama that would happen in the close quarters of this ship.Lastly, the effects are pretty weak, but I don't blame them entirely since the cameras are mostly aimed at the actors, budget was probably very low, and there aren't that many scenes that requires VFX.I would recommend this movie to those who generally just like historical dramas, or maybe just like to watch Benedict Cumberbatch's earlier roles.

ewillia777 Am I the only one to notice that the "realism" of the 19th century ship is erroneous. Actually it's a 15th century, right around 1620 if memory serves me, because the "realistic" ship in the movie is the Mayflower, now as far as I know the Mayflower NEVER went to Australia or even attempted a voyage to Australia. I don't know who handled R&D for this film, but using the Mayflower and hoping that no one will notice is a poor job indeed.They even printed it on the cover art and the DVD. I wonder how may other people noticed this little blunder? Not to mention that the movie itself was just plain awful, I would have expected better from Sam Neill.