""Admiral" ("Michiel de Ruyter") movie" Topic

I was very happy to see an English subtitle version of this movie up on Amazon Instant Video. I've been looking forward to seeing it, and I was afraid that it wouldn't show up in a theater close enough that I could attend without planning a road trip. I bought the digital HD version.

It's a little shorter than the original, about 20 minutes or so having been edited out, probably to fit some distribution company executive's perception of the stunted attention span of American movie-goers. It rendered the narrative a little choppy in places.

The acting is good enough. Some excellent moments, and certainly nothing bad enough to break the spell of the story. Both the directing and the soundtrack music tend a little toward the melodramatic at times. The cinematography is mostly quite impressive, but the special effects are occasionally less than special, and the cgi is, at times . . . well, cgi-ish (the better it is, the less it looks like cgi, you know.)

As for the historical accuracy, the film is really as much about the legend of de Ruyter as the history (which is no less than what I would expect from a Dutch film company). As such, there was a little playing fast-and-loose with the historical background in the interest of telling a story (de Ruyter was not on board the ship that broke the chain in the Medway, nor was he in the Hague when the de Witts were murdered by the mob, nor was his widow present at his funeral . . . you get the idea) but it was certainly not as bad about sticking to the facts as most of the tripe we get out of Hollywood. Some of the ships used in the film were decidedly 18th century designs, but careful camera work and a bit of judiciously placed cgi minimized the impact of this on the visuals, and the vast majority of viewers wouldn't notice the difference anyway. At least they used real ships instead of static sets for many of the scenes. Big plus.

So, in spite of the shortcomings, was it worth seeing? Absolutely. In fact, I will take the time to watch it again . . . a compliment I have reserved for a mere handful of movies.

Just watched it myself. Some very impressive large sea battles, albeit not quite in top tier CGI, and not as grittily portrayed as in Master and Commander, but they do a good job of conveying some of the manoeuvres involved.

It's based on "true historical events", not those false historical events, or true non-historical events. :)

Had to laugh at this typical cinematic nonsense: bested by the Dutch, the British Admiral reluctantly turns to the Captain beside him and commands, "Retreat!" Then the Captain steps forward to the quarterdeck rail and shouts down the length of the ship, "Retreat!", as if that somehow gives the crew any kind of useful direction.

Still, it's a good story, with some appealing actors, and many little historical vignettes. At the least, it's interesting to see someone other than the US or UK weaving a national myth.

Had to laugh at this typical cinematic nonsense: bested by the Dutch, the British Admiral reluctantly turns to the Captain beside him and commands, "Retreat!"

That was hilarious. Considering how much effort was put into other aspects of the project, how hard would it have been for the script writer to learn enough about his subject to have the admiral turn to his flag lieutenant and say "Hoist the signal to disengage", which would have been both more believable and more dramatic.

The local sawmills ran out of sawdust to provide all the "splinters" whenever the ships were hit, which was "quite often".

You can borrow it for ever on Zona.

Zona. . .

. . . and all they ask of me is that I download a piece of software from a Russian pirate site, which seems perfectly safe and reasonable.

Yeah, not happening.

Hmm, I'll have to check this one out. Thanks for bringing it to our attention

I liked it .

I saw it. Great art no, but not bad. It also filled in a part of history I was hazy about. I've spent time in Holland and knew about the year of disaster, the murder of the De Witt brothers but didn't realize they were all part of the same thing. Also the capture of the Royal Charles and the ascent of William III.

I must say, the guy who played De Ruyter looked very much like the portraits of him I saw during my recent visit. Ditto the guy who played Charles II.

Zona is pretty safe. I downloaded it, there, yes had a bit of shakes but was done by my stepson who is a local geek. No pb ever since, loads of good stuff in.

What a great news!