This could have been a very good movie. "To Sir with Love" meets a disaster movie! :-) But something with the timing and pacing is not right. The movie is too long - or rather: it has not got enough action to fill up more than two hours. Someone should have tightened it up.
Also, I cannot really decide if I like the Captain or not. He was quite irresponsible and sometimes too hard. As when he forced the boy who was afraid of heights to climb the mast in front of all the other boys, and when he expelled a boy "only" for using a harpoon on a dolphin. It would have been funnier if one could have admired the Captain whole-heartedly! I do not think that the boys developed enough either - and that is the "point" with this kind of super teacher-versus-wild kids movie. At least you were not allowed to see enough of this development, or the result of it.
Another problem was that several of the boys looked a lot alike so that it was difficult to keep them apart. (Or maybe it is a sign of my getting old, that I think that all young people look the same! :-) ) I also think it would have been enough if only two or three of the boys had been presented in detail, with their respective characters, backgrounds, personal problems, and development. The rest of them could all have been small bit parts, "foil". Now there was too much to remember about them, and trying to keep them apart, in just a feature film. If it had been a long TV series it would have been different - then you would have had time to take it all in.
Still, this movie is quite good enough to watch at home with your older children/teenagers on a rainy day!
Also, I cannot really decide if I like the Captain or not. He was quite irresponsible and sometimes too hard. As when he forced the boy who was afraid of heights to climb the mast in front of all the other boys, and when he expelled a boy "only" for using a harpoon on a dolphin. It would have been funnier if one could have admired the Captain whole-heartedly! I do not think that the boys developed enough either - and that is the "point" with this kind of super teacher-versus-wild kids movie. At least you were not allowed to see enough of this development, or the result of it.
Another problem was that several of the boys looked a lot alike so that it was difficult to keep them apart. (Or maybe it is a sign of my getting old, that I think that all young people look the same! :-) ) I also think it would have been enough if only two or three of the boys had been presented in detail, with their respective characters, backgrounds, personal problems, and development. The rest of them could all have been small bit parts, "foil". Now there was too much to remember about them, and trying to keep them apart, in just a feature film. If it had been a long TV series it would have been different - then you would have had time to take it all in.
Still, this movie is quite good enough to watch at home with your older children/teenagers on a rainy day!