I saw this movie after I had read the book, and I was very, very disappointed by it. The script is really weak, covering only about 10% of the book. Most of the outdoor sets look quite cheap, and the best outdoor scenes are the fragments of the silent-movie version of the book (most scenes of the ships crossing the sea, and maybe a scene where the lady enters the house of her uncle at the beginning of the movie, since it looked so differently photographed than the rest of the movie), that I would really love to see. Flynn is very unconvincing, since he portrais Blood as some sweetish cutie, and his acting is clearly very limited to a sweet look and a sneering smile. Well, this can't help him during the whole length of the movie. I think one can really compare Flynn with Brad Pitt, since they both have sweetish-sexy looks combined with nearly no acting skills, in my opinion. Not even the great directing of Curtiz with his light and shadow plays and so on can save the movie. The only good thing is Korngold's score, it's really *great*. But, in the version I watched, a german dubbed version where the dubbing was *really* bad, most of Korngold's score was replaced with some unfitting temp music, especially in the first scene in Port Royal, the duel and the romantic scene between Blood and his love interest on the ship after the duel. The great score is also the only thing that somehow saves this really bad fighting scene at the end, where the only good shots are the ones from the silent movie! My advice: read the book, it's great, get the album of the original soundtrack conducted by Korngold released by Tsunami, but otherwise stay away from this one. But one thing more about Flynn: after seeing him in this movie, I just can't believe all that stuff told about him being some kind of sexmaniac. But, apart from that, is it true that he was bisexual? And one thing more: when seeing a movie like this, I just can't understand some people say about a masterpiece like "Plan 9 from Outer Space", with it's wonderful sets reminding one of german expressionism, that it looked bad. This movie here looks really bad!
Review of Captain Blood
