Best Adventure Movie of All Time?

Rating: 10/10 (17 January 2015)

If you rate foremost by sheer entertainment, then yes, for me this John Huston gem is arguably the best adventure put on film, ever. I love Apocalypse Now, and Lawrence of Arabia, and several classic films perhaps even greater than this Caine/Connery collaboration, but this could best all the greats for sheer fun. I can understand that Huston's other masterpiece, "The African Queen," might appeal more to women; the interplay between Hepburn and Bogart was incredible. The love interest in The Man Who Would Be King is deliberately cold and minimal, in part because it is the ultimate "buddy movie", which might be pejorative, but not intended so. It's a transcendent buddy movie, part epic, part comic, part morality tale. It seems strange that 1% of critics were underwhelmed. When positive consensus is that close, one has to wonder how one or two "experts" could diverge so much from the glories piled on by the many critic worthies, like Roger Ebert, who adored it: I trust him more than some half-baked know-it-all form Variety for appreciation of the art of film making.
Based on a Rudyard Kipling short story, itself inspired by the true story of Josiah Harlan in mid-19th century Afghanistan, it is the rare film that is better than its own source material by any measure. Also, you can find dozens of great movies starring Michael Caine, but here is one of the handful of really great movies that did not squander the massive talents of Sean Connery. For this last reason alone, The Man Who Would Be King is a must- see.