knight1192a

I don't claim to be an expert on Blackbeard, in fact like many of us I really have just a basic understanding of who he was. Not a passing understanding mind you, that would be basically be knowing that he was a pirate and maybe knowing his real name was Edward Teach. A basic understanding would mean knowing the name of the ship he's associated with the most (Queen Anne's Revenge, which was a French ship he captured and renamed), he's associated with the then English colony of North Carolina among other places, that the governor of the colony of Virginia sent Maynard after him because the governor of NC was to friendly with him. Things of that nature.

Now knowing these things, when I saw ads for this movie I was eagerly anticipating this movie. I knew it wasn't going to stick strictly to the facts, what historical movie does? But I expected them to be much more of a guideline than what was presented. Yet for the most part the facts were thrown out the window to present us with a movie that should have been called "The Hunt for Kidd's Treasure." Because that's really what this movie was about, finding Captain Kidd's treasure.

In that they could have used practically any pirate to be alive at any point after Kidd's death. Not only that, they could have created a pirate or said forget the pirates and just use anyone wishing to find the treasure. For that matter they could have set it at just about any time after his death, even today. But by using Blackbeard they ensured there would be a built in audience.

As a movie by itself, if one heavily ignores the director and screenwriter playing fast and loose with history, it's mildly entertaining. The intrigue coming in two ways, firstly Blackbeard and Maynard's interaction in searching for the treasure together, secondly the corrupt governor of an apparent colony in the Caribbean as he looks to hide his truth from his adopted daughter and his citizens. Maynard apparently is sent to deal with Blackbeard by someone else entirely and essentially ends up shanghaied into the pirate's crew, where he hides his real nature, and rather successfully until the time comes for him to save some folks. Meanwhile, the governor and his essentially second in command have been working with pirates for a while now and are willing to team up with Blackbeard so as to get their share of his prizes. Unfortunately for them his adopted daughter falls for Maynard and becomes suspicious of what they are up too.

Indeed something is missing from this movie. I read Gods and Generals long before I knew it was going to be a movie and I expected it to be Much like Gettysburg was in relation to The Killer Angels. Watching that movie I can find places where the movie and the book are different, but for the most part the movie does a good job of following the book. Not so here as there are things that have been added and even more that is missing. Jeff Shara leads us into the war as it will be seen by the four major characters of the book by letting us know where they were as far back as November 1858 and giving us an idea about what may have been going through their heads before and during the war. All of that is gone, as is Antietam, the Peninsula Campaign, and even the 1863 Mud March of the Union Army. And those are just some of what's missing. Even some of the major characters from the novel might as well be gone as the movie only focuses on one. The result of so many changes is a decent movie that missed out on being a great movie by having altered the story so much.