Robinson Crusoe

Plot synopsis:
Robinson Crusoe (Dan O'Herlihy), a third son with few prospects, goes to sea against his father's wishes. On a voyage from Brazil to Africa to collect slaves, a storm forces him to abandon ship. He swims alone to a deserted island somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean on September 30, 1659.
To his delight, the abandoned ship turns up on an offshore rock, allowing him to salvage food, tools, firearms and other items before it sinks. He herds goats, hunts game, makes clothes, and builds a home, with only the company of a dog, Rex, and a cat, Sam, his only fellow castaways. Crusoe lets Sam and her kittens run wild. When Rex dies of old age in 1673, Crusoe nearly goes insane from loneliness.
After 18 years, Crusoe discovers that cannibals are visiting his island with their victims. The next time he spots them with his telescope, he sees a prisoner (Jaime Fernández) make a break for it, pursued by two cannibals. He knocks out one and shoots the other; when the first one regains consciousness, the escapee kills him with Crusoe's knife. Crusoe takes the man back to his stockade.
He names him Friday (after the day of the week on which they met). Crusoe teaches him English and Western customs and turns Friday into a servant. Crusoe does not trust him at first, believing Friday to also be a cannibal who would kill him if given the chance. He builds a door to the cave in which he takes to sleeping. When Friday enters without permission late one night to get an axe, Crusoe puts leg irons on him. The next day, however, Crusoe relents and takes them off. He comes to trust his new companion completely.
After 28 years, Friday saves Crusoe from a cannibal sneaking up behind him. Seeing a large group, they flee back to their stockade. The cannibals, however, are driven off by white men with guns. Captain Oberzo (Felipe de Alba) and his bosun (Chel López) are the victims of a mutiny; the mutineers have landed to get fresh water and to maroon the two. Crusoe and Friday rescue the men and get away undetected. Friday then goes to the leader of the mutiny (Emilio Garibay), offering him a basket of fruit, but the mutineers are more interested in the necklace of gold coins (salvaged from Crusoe's ship) he is wearing. Friday leads the greedy men to the stockade. There, Crusoe, Friday, Oberzo, and the bosun capture them. Oberzo regains control of his ship. At Crusoe's suggestion, Oberzo agrees to let the mutineers remain on the island instead of being sentenced to die on the gallows. Crusoe leaves them his tools and instructions on how to survive.
Crusoe leaves for home with Friday, having spent 28 years, two months, and 19 days on the island.

Tags: violence

Review:
It's really a curse, as the man is really a great actor.Which is what makes this movie better than I thought it would be, because for the duration of this film I never once thought of good ol' James.
I will say, however, that it was fun to see how the liberty was taken here, as the movie somewhat fantasizes about how Daniel Defoe might have come up with the story about Robinson Crusoe.
He's presented with a travel journal of a wayward seaman (Crusoe), and upon reading it (which is the narrative of the film) decides that he wants to write a book about the whole thing.What this does is this allows the filmmakers a little liberty in changing a few dots in the well-known story of Crusoe.
And it was weird seeing William Takaga in the guise of Friday making a few simple errors (like saying 'food' the American-way while Brosnan's been saying it in Scottish accent all the time, as in 'fu-ud' and not 'food').
Although this is far from a faithful adaption of Daniel Defoe's classic novel from the 18th century, this version of Robinson Crusoe holds up fairly well and captures what that polemic writer was trying to say about cultures and how they clash.
Still they do get along until civilization intrudes.Pierce Brosnan is in the title role and aborigine actor William Takaku plays Friday.
Defoe himself is written into the film as he is given a purported journal written by Crusoe and as he reads it Brosnan narrates the story.
A mediocre adaptation stars Pierce Brosnan: Robinson Crusoe , telling the well-known story of how a Brit becomes stranded on a desert island .
As Robinson escaping from England aboard a ship , after killing a man .Then , a wreckage happens and Robinson washes at a mysterious island .There he frees a native , William Takaku , who is nicknamed Friday .So-so recounting about the classy castaway novel with the loner Robinson who meets his pal Friday , retelling their adventures and unfortunes .
. The movie relies heavily on the relationship between Robinson and Friday , charting the peculiar treatment the native receives of the civilized man ; as Robinson teaches English language to the escaped native until evil slave traders spoil the fun .
Pierce Brosnan gives a passable acting as the distressed castaway stranded on a deserted island and he tries to civilize the proud native Friday .
British rendition titled Man Friday 1975 by Jack Gold with Peter 0'Toole , Richard Roundtree .Robinson Crusoe and the Tiger 1972 by Rene Cardona with Hugo Stiglitz .
At the risk of repeating what others have already written, this movie is not the same "Robinson Crusoe" that Daniel Dafoe wrote.
Lest I leave the impression that the film's "artistic license" is my only complaint, though, I should mention that this isn't a very good movie by any measure.
I liked Brosnan's Scottish accent it gave a spice to the character and made more real.The movie is about love and friendship, and really worked on me.
The producers of this hap-hazard adaptation of the timeless classic  had the audacity to include references to Daniel Defoe in both the title and the film itself - why then did they not stay true to his classic story?From the very first to the very last, this films strays so far from the novel that i am surprised they can even retain the title.Stick to the book, or any of the other adaptations of the tale - but stay well clear of this version.I believe that the only way to enjoy this version is to watch it without ever reading the novel - but even then that's quite a stretch..
He is very good and plays his role perfectly and he is of course in the best scenes of the movie, which actually doesn't start until Crusoe meets Friday.
I guess the movie makers decided there wasn't enough action in the book so they added things (like defending the island against the natives and the fight at the end) that were not written by Defoe.
It's probably BECAUSE I haven't read the book that I liked the movie.
I'm not Scottish or even British so I can't really comment on Pierce Brosnan's accent, but I don't think his acting was bad like some have said.
Sounds very interesting and I do agree that they shouldn't have advertised it as James DaFoe's Robinson Crusoe if it wasn't faithful to the book.
This comes from someone who can and frequently does enjoy some pretty lame movies.....Okay, I get the slavery thing- but THAT was addressed in the book, and why are we blowing up all these natives again?
As I fast forwarded through another pointless love scene, my son said "Aww not the NAKED thing again!" This should have been a movie we could all enjoy- instead it was turned into a stripped and remade POS, completely without the ideas that made the book so great..
In the end, one leaves the movie with a feeling of fate, when good and bad events throw us into our destinies.
I thought the movie in and of itself was mediocre at best, but like others I have a grievance that can't be silenced by quoting artistic license.They didn't stay remotely within the concept of the book and no one said they needed to, but they erred when they attached the classic title to their new invention.
I would suggest far more than would see the movie otherwise would watch it because they read the title and remember a powerful story that managed to survive with effect into the modern era.
I wonder if someone in Miramax ever read the book and understood main idea behind this wonderful story by Daniel Defoe.There is nothing left form original script and I'm very disappointed to see Pierce Brosnan wasting his talent on this crap..
Every character looks real, you have Robinson Crusoe played by Pierce Brosnan.
Those of you with great standards please forgive me for I have to say these bad thoughts...This film deserved a much better director and I can't tell you how disappointed I was by Pierce Brosnin.
I give kudos to the impeccable work of the actors, and directing and editing seem to work equally well for a very nice entertainment experience.However, as soon as I start comparing this version to the original book, I feel an immense let-down as so many things have been changed (I won't give a list because it would be just way too long).
I liked the look of Robinson's island a lot, and all the buildings and mechanical contraptions were nicely designed.
But at the same time, none of the scenes in this film are nearly as boring as many of the scenes in the book, which - though a classic, and rightly regarded as such - suffers badly from age and its role as the "first novel", in that nobody had quite figured out things like pacing just yet.
I have read the book when I was a child and I guess like everyone else I expected another re-make of the real story.
The basic castaway idea has been done many, many times over the years (lots of Robinson Crusoe movies, Swiss Family Robinson, Cast Away, Six Days and Seven Nights, Gilligan's Island, and so on and so on).
I first read Robinson Crusoe when I was a child, and I probably did not understand some very interesting details in the book.
A couple of months ago I went to a bookstore in an airport to buy a book for a long trip, and I found Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and decided to re-read it.
As I use to do, I rented the movie just after reading the book, and I became deeply frustrated with the movie.I understand it is difficult to express some aspects of Crusoe's life, such as the almost 30 years he spent alone in the island (before he met Friday!!!).
Crusoe was not a lord as presented in the movie, he was not in love when he went to the sea, he had some adventures before wrecking in the deserted island (he wrecked near England, he was a slave in Saleh, he lived in Brazil and had a plantation), the island was not near Guinea but in Central America, he and Friday left the island in a Spanish ship and Friday went to Europe with him, there was no lady expecting for him, and so on and so forth.
Besides, Defoe did not base his novel in Crusoe's diary, but in the history of another man who lived alone in an island for 3 or 4 years, and when was back to England, built a cave to live in alone.I also don't need to mention that Pierce Brosnam is a disaster as a Crusoe that was supposed to be deep in thought, in a movie that should have discussed the nature of mankind.So, even though the movie has some beautiful scenes, it is very frustrating for someone who read the book before.
For those who haven't read the book yet, I can tell you: it is much better than the movie!.
In the original story Robinson Crusoe has a Christian conscience which he violates by not listening to his father.
"I was earnestly begging God to give me repentance when it happened providentially the very day that reading the scripture I came to these words, 'He is exalted a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance and to give remission' (Acts 5:31)" "By now I began to exercise myself with new Thoughts; I daily read the Word of God and apply'd all the comforts to my daily State."(p.71, p 83)The whole story is a theological tract that deals with conversion, sanctification, and reconciliation (Crusoe himself) and the missionary work of evangelization and struggle of God's dealing with the heathen (Friday and the cannibals) ex.
The fact that this version of Crusoe has big plot differences from Defoe's novel is irrelevant.
It states at the beginning that it is "based on" the book and as a movie the (new) story tells itself well.
I take no pride in what I'm about to say.I don't mind that the movie basically only uses the title and character names from the book; not at all, it's a movie based on the book, but absolutely nothing like the book; and I am fine with that, but here's the thing......I watched the movie on HULU, I thought to myself, "why would this be on HULU?" as the movie began it wasn't bad at all; it kind of reminded me of "the count of monte cristo." I thought to myself, "why is this on HULU?" I have never seen a movie that started "OK" and progressively got worse and worse.
If you watch ''Robinson Crusoe '', expecting it to be an adaptation of the novel written by Daniel Defoe, forget it, because you are really going to hate it.
The character Mary and the fact that Crusoe was not in love when he went to the sea, Crusoe spending less then 5 years on the island( when he stayed almost 30 years)Friday being killed on the island ( when he went to Europe with Robinson), Robinson being a lord (when he was never a lord) and so on, are just a few to mention.But as a movie,without thinking about the book,we can consider it good, with beautiful scenarios and a nice plot.It all starts, when Robinson Crusoe needs to stay away from Britain, since he killed his friend over the love of Mary, a woman he knows since they are kids.
Needing to know how to survive on that place and also trying to go home, Crusoe stays alone for years, until the day he saves a native man from being sacrificed, whom he calls '' Friday''.
They start a friendship, and they both learn many things,specially Crusoe, who learns how to respect other cultures and religions besides his own.Ps: ''Cast Away'', the movie where Tom Hanks is alone on an island, have many things in common with this movie,including the fact that both men let their women behind and needs to find ways to survive alone on a desert island.
Probably if you enjoy ''Robinson', you are going to like ''Cast''as well(And Vice versa).Ps2: READ the book.
During the opening credits it is stated that the film is based on the "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe".
To me, the highlight in the film is the superb acting by both Pierce Brosnan (Robinson Crusoe) and William Takaku (Friday).
It is so emotionally charged and so deeply moving.Robinson Crusoe (1997) is a great, little film.
Brosnan is excellent as Robinson Crusoe and the actor playing Friday also does a decent job.
My big problem is that it's titled "DANIEL DEFOE'S ROBINSON CRUSOE".
It is well beyond an adaptation or artistic license.It has been many years since I read the book as a kid and as I watched the movie I was thinking - I don't remember a duel with swords.
I really love good adventure movies.
And that is not the worst.It is not a good movie and it is a TERRIBLE book adaptation.
In the book Robinson Crusoe was not a lord, he was not a great swordsman and he was not a warrior.
It's a reworking of a book written nearly three hundred years ago, so of course it's going to be prone to modern storytelling techniques and manipulation.It's basically a TV movie but they managed, somehow, to rope Pierce Brosnan into this.
Not a bad thing, since he lends some credibility to the character of Crusoe.Since its been more than thirty years since I read the book, I won't try and pick faults with the screenplay's differences from the novel.
Crusoe's (Brosnan's) narration is sometimes needless but not distracting and the movie is fairly good entertainment if there's nothing better to watch.SUMMARY: Fairly decent TV movie.
MOSTLY DOG-BASED.I'd only just finished reading Daniel Defoe's famous novel Robinson Crusoe the previous day when I happened to glance at the TV listings and notice that Channel 5 were showing this 1996 film adaptation in the middle of the afternoon.
So, sticking a tape in to record it, I settled down later that evening intrigued to see what the producers had made of a story that was still so fresh in my mind.Robinson Crusoe is not a novel with a hell of a lot of plot to it, so it's understandable that if you're making a film of it you have to try and make it a little more dynamic, or else you'll just end up with an hour and a half of a man cutting down trees, sowing crops and raising goats.
The duel- and woman-based storyline grafted onto the beginning and end of the film here isn't much of a one, however, with Crusoe fleeing a murder charge in eighteenth century Scotland and taking to sea.Quite apart from the moving of the events of the story from the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries by the film-makers, if Crusoe is a Yorkshireman in the book and he's being played here by an Anglicised Irishman in Pierce Brosnan, then why the hell is he Scottish?
On the other hand, however, the friendship between Crusoe and Friday here and the eventual climax of the film between the two of them is probably a punchier ending than Defoe gave to the original novel, which sort of fizzles out with a load of nonsense including wrestling bears in the snow in its original form.There are numerous other problems  Crusoe does have a canine companion rescued from the same ship he was on in the book, so that's faithful enough, but he was a little too cutesy here for my liking, and what the hell was the point in blowing the bloody thing up?
For goodness sake There's also the fact that as the initial stages of his exile pass by so quickly, we get to see little of Crusoe's ingenuity in settling into his surroundings, finding ways of providing for himself and building his settlement.Perhaps to trick viewers who haven't read the novel into thinking that this is an accurate representation of it, the makers of the film include a couple of short scenes at the beginning and end of Daniel Defoe being presented with Robinson Crusoe's journal by an eager friend who thinks he should turn it into a book.
They fail to depict him going on to say "well not this exactly, I mean I might use the same name and basic main plot idea, but I'll need to make a hell of a lot of changes" "Daniel Defoe died in 1731, but the story of Robinson Crusoe lives on," a caption just before the end credits tells us.
Nevertheless, I think this film does a good job of adapting the story for a late 20thC audience.
Producers, if you are going to cast an actor who must play a Christian, get an actor who can ACT and at least make an effort to conceal his personal contempt.The movie bills itself as "Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe" but nothing about the movie lines up with the book, except the character's names.
In the original Friday becomes a Christian and leaves the island with Robinson.
It is the 18th Century, and the film begins with a guy giving Daniel Defoe (Ian Hart), the writer of the classic novel, the journal a man's true story of survival.
Then it obviously moves into the world of this man, in the 17th Century, Robinson Crusoe (Pierce Brosnan, an Irishman playing a Scotsman) was the ordinary man who flies Britain after killing his friend over the love of Mary (Polly Walker), and the fierce ocean storm wrecks the ship, leaving him stranded by himself on an uncharted island.
Robinson Crusoe flees Britain on a ship after killing his friend over the love of Mary..