The Old Man and the Sea

I watched the Old Man and the Sea at school for English and I thought it was okay. The plot seems real enough but there is fault in the characters. I read the book and expected that they would make changes, so finding that the old man had a daughter was not a shock to me, but her bad acting contributed to reason this movie was not such a hit. Also Santiago was supposed to be Cuban yet this actor's accent was horrible and he wasn't Cuban. I even heard that he was a famous actor back then and that is why he got the part. Some of the flashbacks were also not in the book which I understand but some had nothing to do with the plot of the story. Santiago was supposed to dream of lions on the beach but instead he dreams of his youth. There were also some good points though, the actor who played Santiago was very good and so was the boy also adding the author of the book into the movie was genius. The big blue marlin at some point looked fake, and the background of the sea, also fake. The scenery of the beach was beautiful though, and it kind of reminded me of my home country. In book and movie, Santiago shows the endurance courage and compassion for the fishes he catches and that is probably what drew people to watch it the first time but know it is not all that popular anymore and would not be a good choice to pick if you wanted to see a good movie. For ratings I would give this movie a four out of ten for good effort even though it really did suck.

Warning: Movie Details revealed:

I'm a freshmen student who watched the movie Old Man And The Sea I think the movie's graphics weren't all that good. The plot was good, but the graphics were horrible. Every thing looked fake, especially the marlin. Other than that the movie was good. They didn't make many changes, and the changes they did make, made the movie better not worse. The actors did their job pretty good and they were convincing. For example when the old man was out to sea looking for the fish and talking to himself he was saying things with a lot of feeling. Or the part when he was saying that he had to kill the fish even though he loved it and respected it. Then when he was asking himself if it was right to kill the fish he put enough real emotion in there to convince the person watching that he was actually there. The actors looked like I imagined they would look. Except one, the daughter Angela. They stuck to the book and how they said stuff and what they said so it was actually a good book in terms of the plot, if you can get over the fake graphics than it's a fairly good movie.

I never read the book until I was in my 60's. Hemingway did an excellent writing of the book. I next watched the 1990 version of the movie with Anthony Quinn. He did a fantastic job along with the writers. Books and movies aren't made like these classics. If you haven't read the book, or even watched the 1990 version or the 60's version with Spencer Tracy, you should treat yourself to it. I also have listened to the audiobook version with Donald Sutherland as narrator. I believe the 1990 version with Quinn is the more realistic version since he is Mexican-American and his version is more like Hemingway's Old Man. Treat yourself with this book/movie.

The 1990 version of The Old Man and the Sea is a movie you shouldn't see if you didn't read the book. I watched this movie in my high school English class, and I actually found the book pretty good. When I watched the movie I was really disappointed in what I saw. It had poor graphic quality and most of the cast acted very badly. This movie made me lose all my interest in the book. WARNING SPOLLERS!!! The movie was similar to the book in the way that it put everything in order from beginning to end, with very few things changed. But the main part that was changed is that in the movie Ernest Hemingway's character was in it. He played his role but he was pathetic and ever so false. To me the only character that acted like he was supposed to was Anthony Quinn, but everyone else really sucked. This movie, though similar to the book was very stupid in my opinion. If you are planning to show it for class I recommend that you don't. In all honesty I enjoyed reading the book more than I did watch the movie. It was so boring I almost cried. I wish it wasn't true but the acting just put me to sleep. It was really old fashion and it looked really false. If you were hoping to watch this movie for clarifications, don't, it will just get you really lost. Feel free to watch the movie and disprove me if you want this is just my own opinion. But if you're disappointed at what you see don't say I didn't warn you. I give this movie 3 out of 10. Read the book it's a lot better than the movie.

Not much actually happens in this movie: an old man Santiago (Anthony Quinn) has not caught a fish in over eighty trips, goes out for one last trip and catches a huge fish. By doing so, he discovers, perhaps for the first time, the insignificance of human beings in the overall scheme of things. It is a testament to Anthony Quinn's performance in the central role that our interest is sustained; his range of facial expressions is positively wondrous, especially when alone on the boat with no one but himself to talk to. Director Jud Taylor also works hard to develop the spring-and-autumn relationship between Santiago and the boy Anderez (Paul Calderon), which prompts the old man to consider his own behavior as an old men when he believed that he was virtually impregnable. The story has a Hemingwayesque figure in the form of Tom Pruitt (Gary Cole), a writer who cannot leave Santiago's small community until he has discovered for himself just what motivates the old man. This role is a little superfluous, but at least shows why the author himself was interested in such an apparently insignificant story.