O Lobo do Mar

When I stumbled upon the 1993 TV movie "The Sea Wolf", by random chance here in 2024, and seeing that the movie had both Charles Bronson and Christopher Reeve on the cast list, of course I had to sit down and watch it. In fact, I didn't even know that the movie existed prior to finding it by pure luck.

And imagine my surprise when I saw that the movie also had Marc Singer, Garry Chalk and Catherine Mary Stewart on the cast list. That was just some sweet icing on he cake.

I had no expectations to the movie or to writers Jack London and Andrew J. Fenady, as I virtually had no idea what I was in for, as I sat down to watch "The Sea Wolf". So in a sense, the writers had every opportunity to impress and entertain me.

The storyline in "The Sea Wolf" was good, writers Jack London and Andrew J. Fenady put together an enjoyable and entertaining script. It was a storyline that had a nice progression to the narrative, and one that was laced with some nice elements of character development, storytelling, suspense and drama.

"The Sea Wolf" has a good and interesting character gallery, so writers Jack London and Andrew J. Fenady did manage to pen down some nicely detailed characters for the movie and aboard the Ghost.

The acting performances in the movie were good, and it was definitely nice to see the likes of Bronson and Reeve acting opposite one another, because they both put on good performances and brought a lot of flavor to the movie.

The movie is nicely directed by Michael Anderson and also nicely shot with great cinematography, which definitely made it feel like the audience were right there alongside the sailors aboard the Ghost.

While "The Sea Wolf" definitely is a good movie, it is hardly a movie that warrants a second viewing, as the contents of the script just doesn't have enough contents to support multiple viewings.

My rating of director Michael Anderson's 1993 movie "The Sea Wolf" lands on a six out of ten stars.

I guess TNT had a little Christopher Reeve tribute this past weekend. Caught the end of "Superman 2" and then got sucked into this slightly better than average "tv movie." Good acting from Reeve and Marc "Beastmaster" singer. Bronson wasn't very believable though and his acting was as lousy as ever. All and all, not bad for a flick made for tv, but there's a reason it's just that -- "made for tv." The ending was particularly unnerving - seems that they said "hey we've only got 5 minutes left of tv time - let's wrap this up with 4 different plot points." I gave it a 7 of ten but more along the lines of 6 and a 3/4 (my ratings are like school grades 7= C) -- check it out if you're a Reeve fan, but Bronson is no Lex Luthor.

Two evergreen actors Charles Bronson and Christopher Reeve.

For those who saw the black and white version of 1941 starred by E.G. Robinson, John Garfield and Ida Lupino, this remake is far away to be of the same quality as this one. Bronson is never at the altitude of Robinson, he is a kind of soft Wolf while Robinson played a real tough one. Reeve tried to be at the same level of Garfield, but again unsuccessfully. This remake is only better in its photography and colors, but the cast of 1941 version acted simply masterfully.

I would strongly recommend to those, who haven't read the novel by Jack London yet, to do so. It is only about 1500 times better than this movie. Despite its good intentions, the movie is a very light, short and mediocre version of the book with significant changes and cuts. It's watchable but easily forgettable. Charles Bronson is one of my favourite actors, but he is not convincing as Wolf Larsen who is supposed to be a fascinating and gracious predator, a tiger in human flesh at the prime of his physical strength. The character growth of "Hump" (Humphrey Van Weyden) here is just skimming the surface, while the book provides much more graduate, believable and interesting transformation of his personality. The love interest is also entirely different from the one depicted in the movie.