Shackleton (2002)

Powerful

Absolutely the worst movie.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Shackleton was truly one of the greatest explorers Britain produced. The extraordinary true story of the 1914 expedition is a tale that deserves to be told. And told it is in suitable fashion: with a strong emphasis on authenticity, not just period mannerisms and costuming, but weather and settings. This makes for very good viewing indeed.This is stirring stuff - Branagh's portrayal is a superb study in the British colonial style of leadership and worth watching on that basis alone. He is human, a gentleman, but tough as nails. The rest of the crew are excellent and one really takes this extraordinary tale of survival with them.The disastrous expedition is covered from inception and funding through to the mind- boggling hardships experienced by the crew and their extraordinary tale of survival.I defy anyone to watch this and not be motivated, moved, and inspired. Beautifully made and realised this is simply notch above normal viewing. Highly recommended.

Having recently devoured 3 books on Shackleton, I was eager to see this. I won't repeat the comments made above, but I would like to second the comment about not enough time being spent on the actual adventure. This movie doesn't really give you nearly a sense of the actual suffering, dehydration, starvation, and just plain thrills and chills of what these men went through. (For this I highly recommend the book by Alfred Lansing - spare prose, yet an irresistible page turner that blew me away.) For example, most of the scenes at sea seem to be in absolutely calm waters, and many scenes on the ice are similarly serene, yet the book (whose author had access to all of the original diaries) tells of many days and nights of gale-force winds. I suspect the budget didn't allow for many special effects.The book describes how the men's faces were blackened with soot from the seal blubber constantly being burned, yet you don't really see this in the movie. Also, the 3-man slide down the glacier looks like a joyride here; in the book it was a hair-raising act of desperation.I would not recommend this as a starting point for discovering Shackleton - for this I obviously suggest the book. But as an adjunct which gives you a visual sense of the ship and the encampments, it's not bad.

The commentaries here are very good. Philby-3, whoever he/she is, has a particularly complete and accurate summary. Since I go out of my way not to be a me-too, I will make only two points, because no-one else has made them. I wonder why not?1. Particularly poignant for me were the few seconds that showed Shackleton's grave, in the Antarctic, where he willed it to be. Did you all miss this?2. If you have not yet seen this 4-hour effort and are reading these comments because you think you might want to, then I would IMPLORE you to FIRST see the Imax "summary" version of this, the one called "Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure". The Imax version, at least the modern parts of it, is much more effective in actually "putting" one into Antarctica, in seeing the subtle colours, the huge scale and the savage beauty of the place. This film, by comparison, is totally focussed on the human aspects of the story.

This is an true story and Epic Tale. I've been waiting for years for someone to step up and make a good movie about this. Surprisingly this movie was both extremely well done and made for TV. If this story had not been a matter of fact, it would seem unrealistic that anyone could have survived such hardships.Branagh actually looks a bit like Shackleton (at least in the limited footage I saw). I cannot speak for entire historical accuracy, but we see a man of amazing courage and compassion for his crew (an earlier attempt at the Pole was aborted to avoid killing his men). As a researcher, I also found the grant getting exercises and search for support interesting.I also enjoyed very much the portrayal of the crew, the supporting cast performed quite well. The special effects were also good. Many details from Shackleton's book were omitted (because he described things like hunger for starchy food). However, the show was in a two parts, and most of the heroic stuff happens in the second part.So, I gave this a 9 out of 10 (well told classic story) with only minor deductions for some slowness in the first part.