La Fortuna

I have been very excited, when I have heard that Alejandro Amenábar had been working on a series. But this is an amateur hour. The main american cast is great, but they can't make the screenplay better. Holes in the plot, disappearing and reappearing of the main protagonist, dialogues from a high school play and so on. My advice: avoid this one, and watch Alejandro Amenábar movies.

For those who criticise this series should do some background research before making a knee jerk reaction search for Odyssey who plundered Spanish gold in silver coins in the same nautical area near Gibraltar and living in Andalucía I witnessed the true story unfold.

La Fortuna is clearly based on the story of the Spanish ship Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes and the battle by Spain to reclaim the treasure uncovered by the American salvage company Odyssy, and it mainly follows that fairly closely. Of course it's full of fictional characters, relationships and love affairs, and they manage to throw in some silly and totally unlikely things in the final couple episodes, but it was still worth watching. Oh, and of course it's hugely biased toward Spain and very anti-American, that probably goes with the territory. And I still can't see why the salvage companies don't get to keep treasure that, without their hard work, would never be uncovered.

Well, some of the reviews for this are laughable and borderline racist. The Brits and the Yanks decry it as a pathetic pack of lies, insulting their national pride, while the rest see it as a decent bit of entertainment, based on a comic book.

The facts of the period are indisputable: the British, as they had been for 300 years, treated the oceans as their own private kingdom, seizing ships or sinking them on their whim. This is historical FACT, whether the Brits like it or not.

What is also historical fact is that a number of modern-day US 'pirates' roam the oceans looking for such buried treasure and then a way to keep it for their own enrichment, ignoring the history and nationality of the treasure concerned.

This series sets up a nice battle between the good (the Spanish) and the bad (the Yanks/Brits). It's quite entertaining and the production is good, especially the historical scenes when we see how La Fortuna was sunk.

Make up your own mind and ignore the screaming reviews.

"La Cultura es nuestro petróleo." Culture is our oil (meaning as a natural resource).

Written and directed by Alejandro Amenábar adapted from the graphic novel, El tesoro del Cisne Negro by Guillermo Corral and Paco Roca. This was my first graphic novel and I have to say that as a novel, it's stupid, but as the basis for a movie, it's brilliant. Amenábar must have thought he hit the lottery with this as it's like someone already story-boarded the entire series for him.

The negative reviews here seem to be from people taking offense that there are some jabs taken at the USA. I'm American, but I'm also very thick-skinned and not easily insulted. I always say the same thing, any America who thinks that they rest of the world has to think we are the greatest is being a child, and the rest of the world has to realize that as the leading power in the world, there have been much worse in history than the USA.

Back to La Fortuna. This is one of the best, if not THE best Spanish series that I have seen. It definitely has the best acting, and for good and bad acting, I always put the blame or the praise on the director. It is the director's project, so if someone gives a bad performance, that's on the director. Chapeau to Amenábar.