This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

the audience applauded

Perfectly adorable

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This movie fails for several reasons. First of all, if someone thinks of 20000 leagues under the sea as a film, he will most likely remember the 1954 Walt Disney version of it with Richard Mason, Peter Lorre, Kirk Douglas and Paul Lukas. Against a cast like that this version stands with no chance, Richard Crenna is a decent actor if he plays a decent role and the one thing you can say about him is that he doesn't look as ridiculous as the rest of the cast. Now if you think of Peter Lorre as Prof. Arronax assistant in the 1954 version and consider what you get instead, a girl with an ugly haircut, this is the first big disappointment. As an earlier comment posted, the words "based upon" always gives the authors of a script a lot of creative options. But if you make use of that freedom, you should know where you're going and the result should be good. This time it's not. With the focus of the story on the love thing going on between Nemo, Ned Land and Ugly Haircut the whole essence of the book gets trivialized. The book is a warning about advanced technology used for wrong purposes, adapting this to nuclear power in the Disney version was actually a pretty good idea back then as it was a very popular topic used in many b-movies of that period. The evolving love story is completely dispensable as we know who she'll choose in the end anyways. Furthermore, Nemos attempts to murder Ned Land cause he is his rival in winning Ugly Haircuts heart alters Nemos character significantly to a lovesick villain but once Land saves the ship at the end they are released by him. Makes lots of sense. The biggest disappointment however in this film is the non existent fight with the giant squid, instead you get some sort of alien that gets defeated in a very silly way. Don't get me wrong, I liked Signs for the fact that the alien gets beaten with a baseball bat but this was just pathetic. Some decent underwater shots is all it has to offer, though they add a goof with that as when Ugly Haircut admires the sight outside the Nautilus scuttle the ship would crash into the corals as the camera suggest it is floating sideways. The special effects of the sharks, the monster attacking the Nautilus and the exterior animations of the Nautilus itself are done very sloppy, but that's a disease TV shows and films of that time often suffer from. However, when effects like that are mixed with bad actors, a half baked storyline and a plot basing on the most ridiculous idea that 2 guys would actually compete over a woman with an abomination as a haircut you get a silly film in the end. You may argue that Kirk Douglas building a guitar out of a turtle shell and singing songs to a seal is silly too, it is, but that's what you get when you see a Disney film. At least Disneys version had some funny moments, but who laughed watching this one? I rest my case.

This movie starts off OK. The book it is based on is a classic, the design work is interesting, the special effects are pedestrian by today's standards but perfectly adequate. Then they started changing things in nonsensical ways. Extra plots and sub plots are added, Verne's original novel emphasising exploration is set aside in a convoluted story that involves revenge, father/son conflicts, bionic limbs, and an attempt to make all the fault lines on the planet go off at once.I stuck through with it to the end, but I wish I hadn't. Avoid this one.

What the hell is this? Michael Anderson is a good director, and has done good films in the past, but this? A giant octopus - or is it a sea monster - attacks, and the crewmen WALKS into the mouth of it and thinks they gonna survive???And what is it with Hollywood concerning the fact, that there CAN'T be a group of men living together on a tiny area, for a long time?? In all modern versions of Jules Verne books (except Richard Fleischers version), there are some characters replaced by female versions. Do Hollywood think that ALL men are gay???Two versions came the same year and in BOTH the professor has a daughter...Well, Ben Cross is brilliant - as always (and 2 points for that). Richard Crenna is OK, but the rest? No, let Nautilus go to the bottom and the let crew & passengers rest in peace...

Here we have a complete perversion of Jules Vern. Instant of Conseil we find professor's Arronax ...daughter(!),who is the apple of discord between a terribly bad captain Nemo and Nent Land. The only thing worthing attention here are the fishes.Trully.