On the Beach
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List Price: $6.99
Our Price: $3.99
Your Save: $ 3.00 ( 43% )
Availability: Usually ships in 9 to 12 days
Manufacturer: Platinum Disc
Starring: Armand Assante, Rachel Ward, Bryan Brown, Mark Pennell
Directed By: Russell Mulcahy
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0096009286590
Format: Closed-captioned
Label: Platinum Disc
Manufacturer: Platinum Disc
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Platinum Disc
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2005-03-01
Running Time: 109
Studio: Platinum Disc
Theatrical Release Date: 2000
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Editorial Reviews:
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Studio: Platinum Disc Llc Release Date: 01/31/2006 Run time: 209 minutes
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Not really on the beach
Comment: In this brutally long (the DVD I received was 3+ hours, not 109 minutes as listed) mockery of Nevil Shute's book, it's pretty clear the makers of the movie were being overly ambitious and motive-driven with their interpretation of a contemporary outlook. But first, the story...
The story is fairly simple. It's the end of the world, a catastrophic condition of post-nuclear war. The last people left alive are in the Southern hemisphere, specifically Australia and New Zealand. These people have the unfortunate knowledge of their impending doom, as radioactive fallout insidiously drifts towards them.
As for the interpretation, there was simply too much being force-fed into the script, especially when so much of the original intention of civility and purity in the face of danger was being capriciously ignored. The subtle messages of introspection are lost amidst the anti-military, anti-American messages permeating throughout - perhaps the influence of political correctness. I despise movies that take a book's name and then drastically deviate. Take a few liberties; just don't stomp on Nevil Shute's grave.
There are too many aspects of the movie that went astray, but for starters:
-The wrong people go ashore for the mystery signal mission. Originally it was one person, not two, and it surely wasn't the commander and his second-in-command. (What is this? Star Trek?)
-Peter and Mary Holmes' have a baby, not a toddler. (I guess it was too difficult to keep an infant quiet?)
-Osborne does not commit suicide on the race-track, nor does he resist the efforts of helping his country/mankind. (This was a forced attempt to make his character live up to the "wild" persona created for this movie for no other reason than to give Bryan Brown character focus.)
There are two worse travesties that make this movie abhorrent.
First, Dwight Towers is completely wrong. In the book he's well trained and loyal to the U.S. - death before dishonor. He is a composed, strict, by-the-book military leader. In fact, in the book he goes so far as to sink the sub in international waters, and drown himself in the process, just so it's not in another country's hands. This movie's interpretation, however, has Dwight as a temperamental, raging, high-strung lunatic struggling too much with his memories and hallucinations, having an emotional breakdown during the mission ashore. Not only that, but according to this contradiction, he contravenes direct orders and shows a complete lack of military discipline, which would never have happened.
The worst travesty of this movie, however, is the unnecessary love-triangle, and ridiculous relationship struggles between Cmdr. Dwight Towers (Assante), Moira (Ward), and Osborne (Brown). First of all, Moira is a completely drunken whore. Whereas in the book she actually comes to terms with her eventual death, realizing the errors of her past loose ways, in this version she remains bitter and slutty until the very end. Not only does she sleep with Osborne, but she also beds Dwight. This completely ruins the original intentions, losing the innocence of their relationship that can never be. Part of the book's message is about enjoying and understanding company during the last days without resorting to pure hedonism. Aside from that, there is absolutely no romantic chemistry between Dwight and Moira, or Osborne and Moira for that matter. (There may have been a tense, prison-like chemistry between Dwight and Osborne, however)
There are several other portions of this movie that are atrocious (i.e. mid-movie credits, ridiculous submarine dance scene), and the makers of the movie should feel ashamed at the hatchet-job rework they did with this literary masterpiece.
Customer Rating:
Summary: On The Beach
Comment: I have always liked Armand Assante, and he doesn't disappoint in this movie. It's a very compelling story about the horrors of someone in some country deciding to push the nuke button. Rachael Ward does a good job portraying a maturing hedonist, who as the story unfolds indulges herself in a somewhat complicated love triangle. All in all, the movie is definitely worth watching.
Customer Rating:
Summary: OMG This is AWFUL
Comment: I loved the original movie (with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner) when I saw it a few months ago, and then read the book. Both were great.
This movie remake, however, is absolutely terrible. Armand Assante simply cannot act. Rachel Ward was all too predictible as Moira, and the dialogue that was invented for this version was excrutiating.
Stick with the originals - this one will make you cringe.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Made for TV tripe
Comment: This made-for-TV updated version of "On The Beach" did not add any corrections to the science part. Was to chicken to say that the war started by a third country with an other country's markings on the plane. (The purpose for our missile defense system.) The characters were modified to reflect today's politically correct characters. The government would never let this Dwight Towers near a sub. He can not follow orders and thinks love is greater than his duty to his country or crew. Moira Davidson the young lady without direction is exchanged for Moira Davidson lush owner of a travel agency. Mary Holmes a demure housewife that cant look at the facts is exchanged for an architect that can not look at the facts. The purpose of the story is lost in some sort of sci-fi thing.
Yes the book was written in the Cold War Era environment. However I believe it is timeless. Someone else must think so or they would not have made an updated version for our no too distant future. Yet some characters are predictable. Even those character that change easily through some sort of epiphany can be predictable. The basic story is that Albania sends a plan with a major country's markings and we retaliate. However this is not a pacifist (don't build bombs book). This is not a sci-fi book. It could be a speculative fiction or just speculative.
The book On the Beach as most books is more complete in the characterization and description of the story. One the people is a cross of characters. The captain, Dwight Towers, is well trained and loyal to the U.S. to the end. He takes the sub out to international waters, as Australia is an ally, but not the U.S. Moira Davidson realizes that Dwight is married and helps him buy a pogo stick for the kid. She also decides to make something of herself by going to secretarial school. Others plan for next year.
The audiocassette is unabridged and has the full impact of the book. The only drawback is if you listen to it on the way to work, everyone will notice that you are depressed.
The movie On the Beach (1959) Stays fairly loyal to the feel, with a few minor changes. Some of the changes were necessary due to the difference in media. However others were a little distracting. They used major stars that overshadowed the character that they were playing. Ava Gardner was just a tad old for the part of Moira Davidson. However the movie still let the characters be real and predictable.
On the Beach ~ Gregory Peck
Customer Rating:
Summary: A devastating, though not paralyzing elegy
Comment: Originally my intent was to catch the first few minutes of this movie, and then dismiss it and get on with my weekend. After all, how many doomsday movies can you name that didn't leave a bitter taste in your mouth at the sheer lameness of Hollywood's tear-jerking and corner-cutting? How many doomsday movies out of Hollywood manage to make you think? Thankfully, this production had the Australians on board.
The imagined cataclysm, rewritten for the new millennium, was instantly plausible, and then over in a flash, and the movie immediately cuts to the predicament of the USS Charleston's crew. They are as much on edge as the viewer, yet this is one of the stiffest scenes of the movie, and the next few minutes seem to bode very poorly for the plot. There is the temptation to prejudge the movie as a steroidal and grotesquely superficial action flick.
But the plot instantly takes a turn, the tension subsides and is put in perspective, and the movie takes off spectacularly. From then on out, "On the Beach at Night," the Walt Whitman poem whose first stanzas inspired the title of the novel, is an entirely apt metaphor for the subtleties of the story's unfolding. It moves documentary-like, with characters who face a nearly inconceivable collective dilemma, and who only gradually begin to internalize their own exceedingly lonely demise, wherein they must cut themselves off from everyone and everything they once knew.
To be sure, one can still fault the movie later on for a few more scenes that suffer from stiff and monochromatic acting. And there are a few poorly staged scenes too. But the momentary interruptions can almost be counted on one hand: Tower's chance meeting with Moira; a few crew members who can't hide their Aussie accents; Tower's mindlessly growing confidence in their mission; the apparent absence of *any* survivalist movements as they begin their trip north; the scenes of Osborne driving in a Ferrari through post-apocalypse Melbourne, without apparent concern for gun-toting carjackers; a cargo freighter clearly visible in the background when, near the end, Admiral Tower walks the cliffside. All those flaws can be quarantined to particular scenes, and do not take away from the whole.
And indeed, the plausible update to the initial premise is reprised through other plot twists -- notably, the source of the siren-like call of Anchorage, and then the fate of San Francisco. Along the way, even the bit parts turn out to be very well acted.
The movie takes more than a half an hour to wind down, and in so doing takes an enormous risk. But the cast is quiet and reserved, and this production pulls off a long adieu better than any I can remember. There are subtlely jolting touches along the way -- Melbourne radio signing off, a family embracing and tenderly remembering their best moments together, and a home, like the wider world, eternally emptied of all life.
I cannot say that I will find many opportunities to share this movie within my immediate circle. It's certainly not appropriate for kids. It is, all the same, the sort of film that sticks so thoroughly in one's mind that it'll jolt you back to those few hours whenever you chance upon it again.
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