On the Beach
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Movie Reviews of On the Beach
Movie Review: On the Beach - With Armande!
Summary: 5 Stars
Armande Assante is still one of the sexiest men alive!! Great movie, and eerily believable.Movie Review: Good film, fast shipment
Summary: 5 Stars
The film is the best I have seen in this area.Movie Review: A devastating, though not paralyzing elegy
Summary: 4 Stars
Originally my intent was to catch the first few minutes of this movie, and then dismiss it and get on with my weekend. After all, how many doomsday movies can you name that didn't leave a bitter taste in your mouth at the sheer lameness of Hollywood's tear-jerking and corner-cutting? How many doomsday movies out of Hollywood manage to make you think? Thankfully, this production had the Australians on board.
The imagined cataclysm, rewritten for the new millennium, was instantly plausible, and then over in a flash, and the movie immediately cuts to the predicament of the USS Charleston's crew. They are as much on edge as the viewer, yet this is one of the stiffest scenes of the movie, and the next few minutes seem to bode very poorly for the plot. There is the temptation to prejudge the movie as a steroidal and grotesquely superficial action flick.
But the plot instantly takes a turn, the tension subsides and is put in perspective, and the movie takes off spectacularly. From then on out, "On the Beach at Night," the Walt Whitman poem whose first stanzas inspired the title of the novel, is an entirely apt metaphor for the subtleties of the story's unfolding. It moves documentary-like, with characters who face a nearly inconceivable collective dilemma, and who only gradually begin to internalize their own exceedingly lonely demise, wherein they must cut themselves off from everyone and everything they once knew.
To be sure, one can still fault the movie later on for a few more scenes that suffer from stiff and monochromatic acting. And there are a few poorly staged scenes too. But the momentary interruptions can almost be counted on one hand: Tower's chance meeting with Moira; a few crew members who can't hide their Aussie accents; Tower's mindlessly growing confidence in their mission; the apparent absence of *any* survivalist movements as they begin their trip north; the scenes of Osborne driving in a Ferrari through post-apocalypse Melbourne, without apparent concern for gun-toting carjackers; a cargo freighter clearly visible in the background when, near the end, Admiral Tower walks the cliffside. All those flaws can be quarantined to particular scenes, and do not take away from the whole.
And indeed, the plausible update to the initial premise is reprised through other plot twists -- notably, the source of the siren-like call of Anchorage, and then the fate of San Francisco. Along the way, even the bit parts turn out to be very well acted.
The movie takes more than a half an hour to wind down, and in so doing takes an enormous risk. But the cast is quiet and reserved, and this production pulls off a long adieu better than any I can remember. There are subtlely jolting touches along the way -- Melbourne radio signing off, a family embracing and tenderly remembering their best moments together, and a home, like the wider world, eternally emptied of all life.
I cannot say that I will find many opportunities to share this movie within my immediate circle. It's certainly not appropriate for kids. It is, all the same, the sort of film that sticks so thoroughly in one's mind that it'll jolt you back to those few hours whenever you chance upon it again.
Movie Review: There Is Still Time
Summary: 4 Stars
For those who come to the 2000 version of ON THE BEACH after having read the novel by Nevil Shute and seeing the earlier version with Gregory Peck as the lead will find the remake closer to the book than the original film. Shute's novel of a post-nuclear Australia awaiting slow death by radiation is a desensitizing experience. Not only is the topic one to give the reader pause but his literary style in its deadening prose emphasizes that we had better start thinking about the unthinkable before it is too late. The 1959 film focuses on the stiff upper lip quality that America likes to think is hardwired into the British DNA as the Australians go about their Last Day business with o so coolness. Here, director Russell Mulcachy depicts a Down Under that is probably more realistic than either the novel or the first film. As most Australians realize that the radiation that has wiped out the entire Northern latitudes is inexorably drifting southward civil order and hence morality begins to dissipate. We see scenes of citizens heading toward Melbourne in human tidal waves, overcoming the ability of the government to feed and clothe them. We see scenes of looting, rioting, and civil disorder. We even see a heart-rending scene in which one man deliberately drives his car filled with his children over a cliff. What we do not see is much about the WHY of all this. There are a few minutes of flashbacks to indicate that hostilities began when China blockaded Taiwan, forcing the United States to intervene. The majority of ON THE BEACH deals with how three lives interact. Armand Assante is an American nuclear sub commander who has orders to deliver Bryan Brown to the central government. Rachel Ward (Brown's real life wife) is his jilted ex-fiance who begins a romance with Assante who still mourns the loss of his own family. The film suggests that it is better for the government to hide a bitter truth even when it knows that the public is quite well aware of that truth. The 1959 film begins and ends with a street corner fanatic preaching under a banner that reads "There is Still Time." This banner is present too but only once at the beginning, thus muting the impact that there may not be time. A number of viewers have complained that the ending simply cuts the film off without any satisfying resolution, but that may be the point. Nuclear armaggeddon is so soul-crunching in its finality that viewer satisfaction is probably the last thing that director Mulcahy wanted to leave that viewer with.Movie Review: Very entertaining but makes little sense
Summary: 4 Stars
While I believe this film is very well made and has a lot going for it - good acting, plenty of suspense, interesting characters and action - I found the premise a bit nonsensical. Most of it takes place months after the nuclear war has ended, and the Australians have known or at least suspected that dangerous radioactive fallout was coming their way, for quite some time, yet no one bothers with fallout shelters?
In "The Day After" everyone who was outside the zones of heavy damage and minimally sheltered (like in a basement) survives. It is made clear, too, that radiation decays to relatively safe levels after a few weeks. They announce that it's safe to go outside for limited exposure when the radiation is 0.5 rads/hour.
In "On the Beach" when the US sub surfaces near Melbourne MONTHS after the nuclear exchange is over, they get a reading of 23 rads/hour over the open ocean and seem to believe this is a fairly safe level of radiation. It isn't... anyone exposed to that level of radioactivity around the clock would sicken within days and die within a week or so, yet these people don't start showing signs of illness despite weeks of such exposure.
Even if the radiation was that high in the southern hemisphere, there is no earthly reason the Australians couldn't have waited in shelters for it to decay to a safe level. They had months to prepare. However it's an unrealistic idea that fallout would still be so strong after such a long time.
Aside from these inconsistencies, it a very good film. It would be more disturbing than "Miracle Mile" if it was more realistic.