smatysia (feldene@comcast.net) wrote on IMDB:
This seems really to be an old-fashioned adventure film, the kind the
studios churned out in great numbers in the 1940's. Maybe an Errol
Flynn vehicle. That's the way Georges Corraface plays it, and it's
okay. Not great, but okay. Marlon Brando totally mailed it in, as he
was wont to do in his later years. Tom Selleck is a wonderful actor,
but he really couldn't pull it off in this one. Rachel Ward was much
more believable as Queen Isabella, regal, with more than a little bit
of religious fanaticism. She also played it with minimal make-up,
looking very forty-ish, something many actresses of her stature and
beauty would have refused. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Benicio del Toro
put in decent showings, given the limitations of the material. The
scriptwriters were probably in a bit of a quandary, since the occasion
(500th anniversary) called for a hagiography, but on the other hand,
political correctness makes Colon out to be a villain. They tried to
split the difference, and it didn't work. But over-all, this film is
not as bad as some make it out to be. Oh, and mention must be made of
the beauty of Tailinh Forest Flower as the Indian chieftain's daughter.
Wow!
Written on IMDB a long time ago.
