There is no point being faithful to a book written far in the past if you want to make money from the film, as the cultural bridge would just be too huge. Nevertheless, I think this film does a good job of adapting the story for a late 20thC audience. Perhaps its biggest achievement is that you don't think "Bond" at all, once you move beyond the opening fight scene. The notion that a year at sea will make everything okay, in a country notorious for nurturing grievances over centuries, stretches credibility, but one can understand he's loth to be parted any longer than that from his great love. By the same token, the idea that she would've waited over 6 years for him to come back to her, in an age when a woman's only hope of preserving/improving her standard of living was to obtain a good marriage, beggars belief, but is nicely romantic, amid the immediacy of our present times (cf. the ending of Cast Away). "Swiss Family Robinson" is more fun as an adventure story, while "Cast Away" handles the logistical and emotional challenges of being alone on a Pacific island superbly. Robinson Crusoe's strength is in bridging the cultural divide between a Christian European and a cannibalistic islander at a time when the former considered themselves so superior to the latter that slavery was considered normal practice - showing the common bond between humans that transcends all the superficial differences of gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, class, etc that so easily divide us. So there is plenty of food for thought here, but it can also be enjoyed as a simple adventure story.

I don't know why people are so down on this movie. Why does every movie made from a book have to be faithful to every bit of dialogue or thought? What happened to poetic license? So what it's not faithful to the book. It's a really entertaining and touching movie with a moral. It made me want to open my copy of the book and actually re-read it. You people need to lighten up! Pierce Brosnan is wonderful and yes, I forgot his James Bond persona when watching. Mr. Takaku is wonderful too. He brings a dignity to the character that is certainly not in the book. The movie version brings up some interesting racial and religious sidebars too, which are handled very nicely. I have seen this movie several times and the ending is always heart-wrenching. I end up in tears every time. No it's not Academy Award stuff but it's very worthwhile watching. All in all a nice little gem of a movie. Enjoy!

I am quite fond of desert island films and programmes, two I most enjoy are Tom Hanks in Cast Away, and of course, the brilliant Lost series, and I heard so much about this story that I decided to give this one a go. 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. He learns to fend for himself, gets a companion with the Captain's dog, Skipper, and he uses all the food and tools that survived in the ship wreckage. After spending more time their, over at least a year, he settles and creates a more home, i.e. house, for himself and the dog to live. But he finds he is not alone though, when he sees a tribe sacrificing a man, who he saves, and over months he teaches his new friend, "Man Friday" (William Takaku), to speak quite good English. They know the tribe will be back, so they plant traps all over the place, but they are still captured, and in the end they have a choice to kill one another, or both die, but sadly the British show up and wrongly kill Friday. Also starring James Frain as Robert, Damian Lewis as Patrick Connor and Dracula: Dead and Loving It's Lysette Anthony as Mrs. Crusoe. A interesting story of survival, religion, teaching, friendship, and (slightly annoying) love. I can see why the critics give it two out of five stars. Okay!

I have a high tolerance of bad movies, but this one had me flabbergasted. I remember Brosnan as Remington Steele, and he wasn't too bad in that. He should stick to such cartoony characters, though. His performance as Crusoe was lame. His "preaching" the Bible to Friday was absolutely ridiculous-- Brosnan must have studied televangelists for HOURS to get that right-- and Brosnan's own sneering of the Christian faith comes through pretty well. 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. If anything, the movie goes out of its way to pervert everything Defoe tried to get across in his story.I would have tolerated variations of Defoe's story, but this movie takes the cake of "creative license." It gets weirder and weirder as it progresses, eventually ending in a moralizing scene of slave traders who win the day but kill Crusoe's pal (who "gave his life" to "save" Crusoe-- no religious undertones, here, right?) I wouldn't watch it again if you paid me. It is THAT bad.By the way, does Hollywood give any awards for Worst Actor and Worst Screenplay? This movie would walk away with them all...