Historical accuracy: 9
Acting: 8
Camera work: 8
Editing: 7
Budget: 8
Story: 5
Theme: 7
Pure entertainment factor: 6
Video quality: 8
CGI: 7
Pacing: 5
Suspension of disbelief: 8
Non-cringe factor: 7
I have heard about an Amundsen movie project just about the first initial attempt to race to the South Pole. The one where they went out way too early in extremely cold weather and could have died. He really wanted to reach the South Pole first and made an unsafe trip. But this movie actually shows them reach the South Pole itself in the first 50 minutes which is a bad way to go about this story really as this is what made him famous. The South Pole race with Scott is the interesting event here. The event they even made a mediocre mini series about based on a book. I'm an avid reader and one of the best books I have ever read is "The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundsen's Race to the South Pole" by Roland Huntford. It's spectacular and so was this race. It's one of the greatest events that has ever taken place on Earth. The story has everything.
The movie meanwhile focuses on the man himself. He was known for being a dry and boring public speaker unlike many other explorers. As an explorer you need to seek money from rich people and big companies for everything. So the British explorers were often charming aristocrats with a flair for writing and speaking and putting their country first. So I get why people call this part of the movie boring. But this is really how he was in real life so this is how they should have depicted him for sure. The magic and fascination has to be created from events happening besides him. Only a few autobiographical movies trying to depict a full life are interesting. No matter the man there are slow and boring periods and overall a life is not a clear story with a goal. Hence why a single trip would have been a better idea to focus on. Then make a series of movies. Each one about each trip and the drama related to it. I did like the acting and history lessons. Much of this stuff is totally new to me. But they did mess up the connections between the events.
The movie focuses on his 3 big relationships. His 2 lovers and his brother. And all fail at the end and are historically not relevant. It's quite a dull thing to focus on overall too. He for example, in the movie, meets his first known lover when he meets her husband in England. They then show the movie trope scene of the guy keeping eye contact waaaay too long clearly showing a hidden connection in a cringe way where even a blind man in their company would notice something is up. And then they are dating for a few scenes and ... not much else. He goes on a new expedition and we never see her again as she was married and just stayed in Britain. This is all happening as his very, very irritated and negative brother is telling about Roald to Roald's new lover to scare her off. And therefore we experience Roald's life story in flashbacks. But she is clearly in love and refuses to listen to the brother. The brother goes on and on telling her how evil and cruel Roald is in his social life. Initially I thought it was smart and curious. Instead of doing the Indian, Chinese, or American thing with just depicting a heroic patriot the movie presents the man. And the man was weird and did indeed spend so much on expeditions that he was basically bankrupt or living on loans. This is an extremely costly lifestyle. So his brother was right. Yet this just goes on and on forever. This irritation and negativity drills a hole of boredom in your brain because it keeps coming. We seldom feel the magic of exploration or the magic of Amundsen being the first man to achieve quite a few things becoming one of the greatest explorers ever. It's all subdued and dulled down as the film focuses on the mistakes in his personal life like adopting 2 small girls and then sending them to Siberia when he can't take care of them. Did it happen? Yet. Is it overly exciting to watch these personal drama stories? Not that much. This is why movies about athletes for example focus on a single or maybe 2 partners even though the athlete may have been married 5 times. It just becomes a mess and unfocused. Big George Foreman (2023) is an amazing movie for this reason. All his life steps makes sense in the scope of surviving and fighting for something better. We don't need to see all his 5 marriages. 2 were significant and those are the ones we focus on in the story. The other marriages could have been mentioned in a scene if needed. We focus on the wins after periods of bad events.
Because Amundsen was a bad writer and a negative person his book is just him whining about not getting the respect he deserves. It's counter to most other explorers and makes for bad reading. The movie unfortunately basically takes this storytelling. It goes into his brain and tries to tell us how it felt to be him via flashbacks. Which is sad and boring. But again, things around him were magical and we should have felt it more strongly. It's not all sad and dry, it's just a misstep in script writing.
And this is how the movie fails as entertainment. Keep in mind I did like that I watched it even though it at times is slow as molasses. The movie is flashback sequences. We move from the plane crash to his brother talking about his initial expeditions. Then back to his brother as we see how his negativity makes Roald's girlfriend angry as he only pans Roald. Then back to Roald on a new expedition that's yet again quite slow with more complaints. Then we see his brother try to greet Roald and Roald ignoring him - more negativity. Then to a new expedition with yet another failure. We get the full life story, but it jumps so much that it's actually not easy to know where we are or why. They show a plane crash then show a plane taking off. I figured it was the same expedition yet we find out it's 2 different events as one is a flashback and the other is the old flashback now turning into real time storytelling. When you don't clearly know where you are or how we got here it's easy to lose focus even though the effects are good and the sets are accurate with a few curious details.
I would recommend it for people who like history and want to see cool technology of the past like an airship, planes, and historical ships and events. The movie also has quite a few minor history lessons as they refer to big people and events. But never really give you more than they have to like just presenting history overall. They for example don't even mention WW1 with a single word and basically never talk about news stories, movies, books. We seldom see anyone have fun and joke about. Keep in mind Norway as a country practically was recreated while the movie story is ongoing yet it's not mentioned at all even though the movie is basically about Norway with Norwegian flags everywhere.
I feel the TV series is too cheap to recommend. And it has the same type of story lack as it has to keep to the truth too. This movie looks way better and more expensive. Yet it also lacks story focus. I would say this gives you a bigger history lesson. But the TV series is a bit more engaging and energetic as I remember it. At any rate if you are not hugely fascinated by the history in this both are very easy skips. Don't watch either and expert some grand story that takes liberties with real history to create a proper hero and focused storyline. This is not it. If recut this could become quite good. You would just need to remove the flashback storytelling style which practically never works in ANY movie.
I have heard about an Amundsen movie project just about the first initial attempt to race to the South Pole. The one where they went out way too early in extremely cold weather and could have died. He really wanted to reach the South Pole first and made an unsafe trip. But this movie actually shows them reach the South Pole itself in the first 50 minutes which is a bad way to go about this story really as this is what made him famous. The South Pole race with Scott is the interesting event here. The event they even made a mediocre mini series about based on a book. I'm an avid reader and one of the best books I have ever read is "The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundsen's Race to the South Pole" by Roland Huntford. It's spectacular and so was this race. It's one of the greatest events that has ever taken place on Earth. The story has everything.
The movie meanwhile focuses on the man himself. He was known for being a dry and boring public speaker unlike many other explorers. As an explorer you need to seek money from rich people and big companies for everything. So the British explorers were often charming aristocrats with a flair for writing and speaking and putting their country first. So I get why people call this part of the movie boring. But this is really how he was in real life so this is how they should have depicted him for sure. The magic and fascination has to be created from events happening besides him. Only a few autobiographical movies trying to depict a full life are interesting. No matter the man there are slow and boring periods and overall a life is not a clear story with a goal. Hence why a single trip would have been a better idea to focus on. Then make a series of movies. Each one about each trip and the drama related to it. I did like the acting and history lessons. Much of this stuff is totally new to me. But they did mess up the connections between the events.
The movie focuses on his 3 big relationships. His 2 lovers and his brother. And all fail at the end and are historically not relevant. It's quite a dull thing to focus on overall too. He for example, in the movie, meets his first known lover when he meets her husband in England. They then show the movie trope scene of the guy keeping eye contact waaaay too long clearly showing a hidden connection in a cringe way where even a blind man in their company would notice something is up. And then they are dating for a few scenes and ... not much else. He goes on a new expedition and we never see her again as she was married and just stayed in Britain. This is all happening as his very, very irritated and negative brother is telling about Roald to Roald's new lover to scare her off. And therefore we experience Roald's life story in flashbacks. But she is clearly in love and refuses to listen to the brother. The brother goes on and on telling her how evil and cruel Roald is in his social life. Initially I thought it was smart and curious. Instead of doing the Indian, Chinese, or American thing with just depicting a heroic patriot the movie presents the man. And the man was weird and did indeed spend so much on expeditions that he was basically bankrupt or living on loans. This is an extremely costly lifestyle. So his brother was right. Yet this just goes on and on forever. This irritation and negativity drills a hole of boredom in your brain because it keeps coming. We seldom feel the magic of exploration or the magic of Amundsen being the first man to achieve quite a few things becoming one of the greatest explorers ever. It's all subdued and dulled down as the film focuses on the mistakes in his personal life like adopting 2 small girls and then sending them to Siberia when he can't take care of them. Did it happen? Yet. Is it overly exciting to watch these personal drama stories? Not that much. This is why movies about athletes for example focus on a single or maybe 2 partners even though the athlete may have been married 5 times. It just becomes a mess and unfocused. Big George Foreman (2023) is an amazing movie for this reason. All his life steps makes sense in the scope of surviving and fighting for something better. We don't need to see all his 5 marriages. 2 were significant and those are the ones we focus on in the story. The other marriages could have been mentioned in a scene if needed. We focus on the wins after periods of bad events.
Because Amundsen was a bad writer and a negative person his book is just him whining about not getting the respect he deserves. It's counter to most other explorers and makes for bad reading. The movie unfortunately basically takes this storytelling. It goes into his brain and tries to tell us how it felt to be him via flashbacks. Which is sad and boring. But again, things around him were magical and we should have felt it more strongly. It's not all sad and dry, it's just a misstep in script writing.
And this is how the movie fails as entertainment. Keep in mind I did like that I watched it even though it at times is slow as molasses. The movie is flashback sequences. We move from the plane crash to his brother talking about his initial expeditions. Then back to his brother as we see how his negativity makes Roald's girlfriend angry as he only pans Roald. Then back to Roald on a new expedition that's yet again quite slow with more complaints. Then we see his brother try to greet Roald and Roald ignoring him - more negativity. Then to a new expedition with yet another failure. We get the full life story, but it jumps so much that it's actually not easy to know where we are or why. They show a plane crash then show a plane taking off. I figured it was the same expedition yet we find out it's 2 different events as one is a flashback and the other is the old flashback now turning into real time storytelling. When you don't clearly know where you are or how we got here it's easy to lose focus even though the effects are good and the sets are accurate with a few curious details.
I would recommend it for people who like history and want to see cool technology of the past like an airship, planes, and historical ships and events. The movie also has quite a few minor history lessons as they refer to big people and events. But never really give you more than they have to like just presenting history overall. They for example don't even mention WW1 with a single word and basically never talk about news stories, movies, books. We seldom see anyone have fun and joke about. Keep in mind Norway as a country practically was recreated while the movie story is ongoing yet it's not mentioned at all even though the movie is basically about Norway with Norwegian flags everywhere.
I feel the TV series is too cheap to recommend. And it has the same type of story lack as it has to keep to the truth too. This movie looks way better and more expensive. Yet it also lacks story focus. I would say this gives you a bigger history lesson. But the TV series is a bit more engaging and energetic as I remember it. At any rate if you are not hugely fascinated by the history in this both are very easy skips. Don't watch either and expert some grand story that takes liberties with real history to create a proper hero and focused storyline. This is not it. If recut this could become quite good. You would just need to remove the flashback storytelling style which practically never works in ANY movie.