Good start, but then it gets ruined

good back-story, and good acting

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Marlon Brando was in the middle of his lean period when he made this World War Two thriller. "Morituri" did little to revive him as the film flopped when it came out in 1965. I am hardly surprised by this! The story on the written page looked quite interesting, no doubt. The final results are a right shambles. The main problem with this movie, is the lack of a coherent narrative. After about the opening 15 minutes, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep up with what is meant to be happening. Marlon Brando is cast as another German character who is ordered by British Intelligence to capture a particular vessel which is set to be dynamited. Brando needs to prevent this. Trevor Howard - in a couple of brief scenes - is the one who liasons with Brando at the beginning. The British actor should have been given more screen time. Yul Brynner is his usual robotic self as the ship's captain. I found myself having to guess what was occurring from one scene to the next and most of the film is restricted to being set and filmed on the ship. Long before the end (and it seemed interminable), I gave up on this rambling mess.

I re-watched this Brando-Yul Brynner film after almost a decade. I liked it a lot lesser this time. This is Brando's second film about intrigue and mutiny on a ship. He had acted in Mutiny on the Bounty three years earlier. It is also his second film as a German - he had acted as a sympathetic Nazi in The Young Lions. In Morituri, he plays a German engineer who is persuaded by the allied forces to impersonate a cruel SS officer while traveling on a German ship. His mission is to carry out sabotage so that the allied forces can steal the rubber which is the ship's cargo. Yul Brynner is the ship's Nazi hating captain.It really is a tepid anti-war film. There was not a single scene worth mentioning. There are a lot of wannabe clever, cynical and ironic dialogs. But nothing really works. The director fails to create any sort of tension. Brando's character easily fools everyone on the ship. Janet Margolin's Jewish character who is gang raped by prisoners on the ship (this happens towards the end of the film and by this time I was too bored to be shocked) is supposed to emphasize the film's anti-war message.There is a long tracking shot (almost certainly shot from a helicopter) where the camera pans the length of a ship while Yul Brynner passes orders down to the crew. But it adds nothing to the film.Brynner and Brando are introduced in two exotic locations - Tokyo and India respectively. Brando's performance deserves some praise. As usual, he is all body language. I love the way he carries himself. He did exude cruelty in many of the scenes. Brynner's role was too sentimental and over the top. His accent was quite painful to my ears. Jerry Goldsmith's laidback score reminded me of the one used in The Third Man.This must be one of the most uninspired war movies that I have ever watched.(5/10)

This is a remake from a German film, it was made seventeen years prior to this movie, and it was the first German film made after the war which was about the Second World War. This enjoyable WWII film has a brilliant script , original, precise, forceful , with intensity difficult to perceive . The title "Morituri" is Latin which can be translated as "we who are about to die", from the traditional salute of Roman gladiators in the arena, "Morituri Te Salutamus" , We, who are about to die, salute you! . World War II, espionage, adventure and human lives have never before been combined so explosively . It deals with a German called Rober Crain (Marlon Brando) living in India during World War II is blackmailed by the English (Trevor Howard along with Brando appeared in Mutiny on the Bounty in 1962 and were to appear again years later in Superman) to impersonate an SS officer , he aboard a freighter captained by Mueller (Yul Brynner) with a dangerous assignment . His mission is to locate and disarm the scuttling charges in order to prevent Mueller from scuttling the gunboat and its cargo upon interception by the British fleet . As the allied spy attempts to persuade German boat captain to surrender his vessel . It's not the ordinary World War II spy movie , has an interesting as well as gripping screenplay without mannerisms , though is sometimes slow-moving and overlong . The improvisations throughout history , traps the writer to throw , the short dialogues and surprises rise the action . Sensational interpretations , where all the characters are equally evil in their intentions . Brando plays a Nazi soldier in this film as he had done so in the earlier ¨The young lions¨(1958) for 20th Century Fox, both movies being filmed in black-and-white and both being for made for the same studio. Yul Brynner -is no surprise- magnificent , the film's marketing boasted the surname alliteration of Brando and Brynner . A very support cast such as gorgeous Janet Margolin as Jewish Esther , Trevor Howard as Colonel Statter , Martin Benrath as Kruse , Hans Christian Blech as Donkeyman and William Redfield as Baldwin and Wally Cox as Dr. Ambach Atmospheric cinematography in black and white by Conrad Hall ("Road to Perdition" 2002, "In Cold Blood" 1967,) . Evocative as well thrilling musical score by the great Jerry Goldsmith (Planet of apes , Patton) , full of nuances and details make a lovely movie. The motion picture was professionally directed by Berhard Wicki . He was a notorious stage actor , producer , filmmaker and secondary player . Wicki, who was clown before he became a soldier, stole food for and entertained his French prisoners while they waited to find out if they would be executed. He imprisoned for ten months at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp because of his earlier affiliation with the communist party. Started directing films from 1958 . Best known for his anti-war film ¨The Bridge¨ (1959) and subsequently ¨ Morituri¨. This movie bombed at the box-office upon initial release , it is believe that the film's title was not understood by the public . As such, when re-released, the film was re-named "Saboteur: Code Name Morituri"

I'll quickly cover this film and then go on to talk about IMDb and its rankings scheme in general.Morituri was for me a big surprise as I wasn't expecting much. Frankly Im not very used to watching black and white films and most films from that era do seem rather dated to me. This movie rocked my socks. It was tight, gripping, and moving. Like a well written thriller played out on screen by arguably the greatest leading men of all time - Marlon Brando and Yul Brynner. If you haven't already seen this, watch it right now. Its worth your time and $.Now lets have a look at IMDb rankings. The Dark Knight was released in 2008 and has about 637,794 votes. Casablanca released in 1942 has about 207,358.There's no logical or artistic reason why The Dark Knight is rated higher than Casablanca on IMDb's ranking. Therefore if you're reading this, do your best to promote the films that you really like because there are millions of fools doing the same for substandard, trashy ones. Now I'm not saying the Dark Knight is trashy but just used that title as an example.