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United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand · 1984
Rated PG · 2h 12m
Director Roger Donaldson
Starring Mel Gibson, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Edward Fox
Genre Action, Drama, History
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This film is the story of William Bligh, the sea captain who steered the Bounty on a 27,000-mile voyage. After 31 days of battling Bligh's cruelty, the weary crew is relieved to land on a remote island. But when their tyrannical captain wants to sail again, the men turn to the first mate for help.
The Bounty has an incredible cast and a fabulously well-put-together production, and pays impressive attention to historical accuracy – more than any of the previous cinematic recreations. With all this going for it, it's a pity that the drama falls flat.
Occasionally, this Bounty seems about to soar; the scene in which the ship first makes land at Tahiti, all throbbing drums, bare breasts and hooting sailors, is wonderfully rich if no less cliched. At other times, as when the Bounty leaves calm water for a gale in a split-second cut, the film seems almost amateurish. The rest of it occupies the middle ground between ho-hum and grand -- sure to disappoint those knowledgeable about the early films, still likely to engage those with two hours to kill. [05 May 1984, p.C5]
Though The Bounty is almost willfully perverse in thwarting audience expectations, and though it ends anticlimactically, you can't dismiss it. You know you've seen something. A spell, however faint, has been cast, like the one the island casts on the Bounty's crew. [14 May 1984, p.81]
Washington Post by Gary Arnold
Like so many modern movies, The Bounty appears interesting and even spellbinding when preoccupied with settings and textures, but maddeningly obtuse when obliged to clarify basic dramatic conflicts. [17 May 1984, p.E8]
It's all a brave try, though Gibson is perhaps not up to the demands of a Christian's progress from naive rating to self-loathing exile, and Donaldson's direction often verges on the stolid.
Film is elegant but never beautiful, a pretence at Lean’s magnificence contradicted by a lavish but anachronistic score by Vangelis. It is the words and performances which excite; their director is out of his depth.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Jay Scott
The picture is slightly too long, there are some special effects (especially during a storm at sea) that don't come off, and Vangelis's electronic moans on the soundtrack are sporadically anachronistic, but The Bounty is otherwise a spectacularly sustained piece of epic filmmaking. [04 May 1984]
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
The Bounty is a great adventure, a lush romance, and a good movie.
The New York Times by Vincent Canby
The movie seems to have been planned, written, acted, shot and edited by people who were constantly being overruled by other people. It's totally lifeless.
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