movie coverI'd rather be watching TV![IMDB link] [Not available on Netflix! Good luck finding this anywhere else other than bittorrent, and playing it anywhere else than your computer.]

QUIRKS: Based on the Jack London novel The Sea-Wolf, which was my favorite book ever for a short period of time near the end of middle school, before I discovered The City And The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke.

This is the 13th film adaptation of the novel, after versions in 1913, 1920, 1926, 1930, 1941, 1958, 1972, 1975, 1991, 1993, 1997, and 2008.

This was originally a mini-series, so it’s 2 1.5-hour “movies”, or one 3-hour “movie”, depending on how you want to look at it. And decent books *NEED* three hours to cover their events. Lord Of The Rings helped establish that, and the rushed feel of the some of the Harry Potter movies helped drive that point home further.

PLOT SUMMARY: Go read the The Sea-Wolf wikipedia page; it sums the plot up better than I ever could.

LIMERICK REVIEW: There once was a captain named Wolf Larsen.
Committed atrocities far worse than arson.
He murdered his crew–
Was trusted by few.
Survival of the fittest, like Darwin.

[Hey, I tried at least…]

HAIKU REVIEW: Don’t fall in the sea,
or some dick named Wolf Larsen
might force you to sail.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): Wolf Larsen is a dick.

(Carolyn: “I wanted to like him! … I really wanted to like him! … But he was a dick!”)

PEOPLE: Starring Stephen Campbell Moore as Humphrey Van Weyden. A beardy German TV actor Sebastian Koch as Wolf Larsen…People in the IMDB forum were like “What the hell?”, but I actually thought he was well cast and did a good job. And then we have well-known Neve Campbell (The Craft, Wild Things, 54, Scream 2-3, Party Of Five) as Maude Brewster — I still think she looks like Selma Blair, and she’s probably the most well-known actor in the movie.

Also with Tim Roth (Mr. Orange in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Four Rooms, The Incredible Hulk, Funny Games U.S.) as Death Larsen, and Andrew Jackson as Johnson. (He was in a couple Smallvilles, and 174 episodes of All My Children.)

VISUALS: Some brutal violence at points! Movies at sea aren’t very visual heavy anyway. You mostly see a boat, some dirty people, and Neve Campbell.

MORALS: The whole movie is about morality. Justice versus “might makes right”. The same topics that are explored in the book.

BAD STUFF: Some would say the length. We wouldn’t.

There are some minor deviations from the book. I would have liked to see Wolf [highlight for spoilers]→ set fire to his mattress.

CONCLUSION: We really liked this! Carolyn had never read the book, and I was quite happy to finally see a movie adaptation of it that didn’t scare me away by being some old dated production. Though I hear good things about the Charles Bronson + Christopher Reeves version. It may be the case that a story taking place in the 1800’s can’t really be dated by production value because the story itself is dated. I don’t know. I just don’t like old stuff.

RATINGS:
Clint: IMDB: 8/10.
Carolyn: IMDB: 7.5 rounded up to 8/10.
The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 5.3/10.

We would both rate this 4/5 stars on Netflix… If Netflix had a page for it.

RECOMMENDATION: To see how it compared to other Sea Wolf adaptations, you may want to visit the IMDB forum for this movie.

SIMILAR MOVIES: The other 12 Sea Wolf movies :)

Mood: redefine the game to a win-win situation, and you always win
Music: Pixies – Theme From NARC (by Brian Schmidt)