From: kirsten@morgan.ucs.mun.ca (Kirsten Starcher)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: 1492: THE CONQUEST OF PARADISE
Summary: r.a.m.r. #01578
Keywords: author=Starcher
Date: 6 Nov 92 16:31:20 GMT
Article-I.D.: cbnewsj.1992Nov6.163120.15337
Reply-To: kirsten@morgan.ucs.mun.ca (Kirsten Starcher)
Followup-To: rec.arts.movies
Organization: Memorial University of Newfoundland


			 1492: THE CONQUEST OF PARADISE
		       A film review by Kirsten Starcher
			Copyright 1992 Kirsten Starcher

     I really expected to like this movie a lot.  I'd heard so much
about it -- how it was the great epic of the year, definite Oscar
nominee, blah, blah, blah.

     For the first hour, I believed it.  I was completely blown away by
the sets, the costumes, the ships; I thought Depardieu was super; the
plot was really captivating; there were some wonderfully powerful
moments, i.e., when he first sights land, etc., etc.  It seemed really
good.

     But the rest of the movie, after he returns to Spain and then goes
back to the New World to establish a colony, just ... died.  The plot
became disjointed and confusing -- no explanations were made for a
number of events (the civil war, though it had been building for a bit,
just came and went without much ceremony, for example).  The movie
started to move *SLOWLY*.  I mean, dragging.  It was as if they'd made a
reasonably slow-paced movie that was three and a half hours long, and
then realized, "We can't do this!" and had to cut parts out, leaving
the rest of it as slow-moving chunks of action.  [Actually, rumor has
it that that is precisely what *did* happen.  -Moderator]

     I really didn't like Sigourney Weaver as the Queen.  She may have
looked all right for the part, but she just didn't have any believable
royal presence.  Add to that the American accent -- it didn't really fit
in with Depardieu's French accent and the dozen or so other accents
mixed in throughout the movie.

     I also found the dialogue, at times, incomprehensible; I'm sure I
missed some vital bits of information because I just couldn't catch what
the characters were saying.  I wasn't the only one to mention this,
either; I've heard this from one or two others.  It's not just me going
deaf.  :-)

     There was no real character development of any of the characters
besides Columbus, either.  The "bad guy" (Minoxa? I can't remember) was
just a "bad guy."  I read the press kit and it cleared up something that
was never made clear in the movie; that Minoxa resented a foreign
peasant having such power, and found it simply intolerable.  I mean, I
could tell he didn't like Columbus and his ways, but I didn't really see
anything else until I read that.

     Also, throughout the movie, Columbus refers to the "New World."
The few history books I've looked at on the topic all state that
Columbus went to his grave believing that he'd found a new route to
Asia; he didn't ever find out that he'd found a whole new continent.
Bit of an inconsistency, isn't it?

     To summarize:  This movie tries really hard but just piddles to a
halt.  Fantastic sets, wonderful attention to detail (except the damn
accents) but just can't last the 2.5 hours.  Wait for videotape.

     (It does have a cool soundtrack, though!)

--
Kirsten Starcher
kirsten@morgan.ucs.mun.ca