Christopher Columbus: The Discovery
Christopher Columbus: The Discovery
PG-13 | 21 August 1992 (USA)
Christopher Columbus: The Discovery Trailers

Genoan navigator Christopher Columbus has a dream to find an alternative route to sail to the Indies, by traveling west instead of east, across the unchartered Ocean sea. After failing to find backing from the Portugese, he goes to the Spanish court to ask Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand for help. After surviving a grilling from the Head of the Spanish Inquisition Tomas de Torquemada, he eventually gets the blessing from Queen Isabella and sets sail in three ships to travel into the unknown. Along the way he must deal with sabotage from Portugese spies and mutiny from a rebellious crew.

Reviews
El Guapo-2

I leave it to the viewers good graces to determine whether or not they will watch this film. Most of you will not, and I commend you. There are certainly more worthwhile things to do with your time. However, having said that... the scene where Georges Corraface, a Frenchmen, playing Christopher Columbus (who was Genoan?), enjoys a big fat magic dragon cigar with the local Indian chief (at least played by a real native American) has to be seen to be believed. At least Tim Dalton had the good sense not to appear in this nonsense. The ending made me scratch my head and go "huh", and not in that good David Lynch kind of way either.

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caligariscabinet

This great swashbuckler is completely underrated! Made in the style of the 1940s adventures with Tyrone Power, this film is fun and exciting and I definitely recommend it. And the cast! It's so cool to see the great Brando pass the proverbial torch to next generation actors Benecio Del Toro and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Rachel Ward is excellent as Queen Isabella and Robert Davi is superb. People expected to get a serious drama about Columbus but what they got was much more fun and for this people complain? The shots are beautiful, filmed on the open seas, and the adventure is non-stop. I watched it again this this Columbus Day- what a treat!

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Colonel Ted

Columbus must have turned in his grave because this is one of the worst films of the '90s, devoid of anything that could make it work on every level. It's a very old-fashioned adventure story, except in the old days they knew how to make film's like these. Director John Glen (who made some of the James Bond films) badly handles what little action there is and his direction is uninspired and unintentionally camp. The film looks like it was made in the '70s and there is no trace of style at all. The scenes on the islands with the Indians are a hoot. Production quality is poor (the ships look like they were made from cardboard), but that nothing compared to the terrible acting. Selleck and Ward as Ferdinand and Isabella are terrible, as is Corraface as Columbus, and the only pain Brando is giving out as Torqumada is by his mumbling performance. The script is based entirely in cliché terms and ideas are half hatched. It also bares a worrying resemblance to Carry on Columbus. The editing is some of the worst ever done for a film with scenes put together in slap-dash fashion with no sense of time or coherence. An object lesson in how NOT to make a film on every level. It even fails on its simplest level: to portray the courage and vision that these men had to cross the "ocean of darkness". Ridley Scott's 1492: Conquest of Paradise is so much better in every way that it doesn't do justice to be mentioned it in the same review.

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D Throat

Really not much of anything: all the things that could have been interesting to work out (such as the enslavement of the natives) are not pursued, but rather avoided, and the cast isn't great either. Tom Selleck as the King of Spain is an exceptional example of miscasting. There is lack of depth and indeed lack of actual involvement with the subject. Too bad, now the movie is boring and pointless, really. Watch 1492 Conquest of Paradise instead.

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