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To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a stellar cast involved, I was quite eager to check it out. It is quite a famous story and, even though I haven't watched any other version before, I was already quite familiar with the plot even before watching the damned thing. Unfortunately, even though this 5th adaptation definitely had some potential, it is usually considered as the weakest version which was too bad. Indeed, the opening with Vangelis soundtrack had a nice ominous mood but I'm afraid they didn't manage to sustain this mood much longer and, to be honest, the end-result felt rather flat. At some point, David Lean was working on this project, he was planning to make something really epic in two parts and you might wonder if it wouldn't have been a better approach. Indeed, compressed into a single movie, it actually took forever before the mutiny actually took place. Furthermore, the conflict between William Bligh and Fletcher Christian was also rather poorly fleshed out. Indeed, it was a nice touch that the two men started out as friends but, suddenly, Bligh started to act rather weirdly without much explanation but Christian's motivations were not clear either. Back then, Mel Gibson was criticized for his rather bland performance but I don't think he was helped by the rather poor material provided. Concerning the cast, they actually gathered together some of the best actors (Anthony Hopkins, Mel Gibson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Liam Neeson, Laurence Olivier) but, except Hopkins who was really good as usual, they all struggled to do something really interesting with their respective characters. It was especially shocking to see Day-Lewis, arguably the best actor that ever lived, being reduced to play a rather boring and constipated officer. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look but, with such a cast and such a strong material, it could and probably should have been much better.
6/10
