the audience applauded

Good movie but grossly overrated

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

i didn't know a whole lot about Ernest Shackleton,so this film was an eye opener for me.the title says it all,of course.it's a wonderful documentary very in depth and concise.Liam Neeson is the perfect voice of the narrator.there are also some reenacted moments which are also well done.plus, a good deal of the film taken by the camera man on the crew of The endurance survives,and so we see some of the events as they actually took place.one thing that struck me:back in 1914,people were made of sturdier stuff.as a society we have gotten so soft,that there are very few people today that would attempt what Shackleton did.for me,The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition is a 10/10

The subtext of the film, sponsored by Morgan Stanley, Tyco and other corps, is heroic individualism, the tiresome leitmotif of half a millenium of western history. Roland Huntford, familiar to polar buffs, natters on endlessly about Shackelton's leadership qualities, and the suits at Morgan Stanley probably have everyone attending Shackleton leadership seminars. But Shackleton and the film transcend all that infinitely. As the film points out, Shackleton reversed course morally as the expedition foundered in the ice, from achieving the original heroic feat of crossing Antarctica, to getting the party out alive, to surviving. Of course a less resilient party, less skilled and resourceful, would not have survived, Shackleton or no; he picked them after all. The moral is that their (particularly Shackleton's life-long) quest for adventure and heroic deeds (the spirit of the age) was not fulfilled as planned, but he/they were magnificently successful in overcoming obstacles fate placed in their way, thrived on it, completely satisfied. The sense of deliverance on the final, harrowing leg across South Georgia, and his statement, the last words in the film, about having read the text of god, say it all.

Endurance, the Shackleton expedition is more compelling depending on how the viewer views the material. I stayed awake throughout (the candy and soda helped, but still), but that might not be the case for the entire audience. The tale tells of Ernest Shackleton (is that his name), an expeditioner who took a crew of men on an expedition to search more of the Antarctic continent. This turned out to be not the case, however, as they had to endure the loss of their endurance ship, a number of crew members, and most of the morale that came with them in the beginning, but they still had to pull through, to survive to get back home. Compelling from a view it more or less stays on that track with some interesting and poignant interviews with historians and relatives of the crew on the voyage. It does get a tad boring in parts though; Liam Neeson provides narration. B

At any point in this expedition, many would have given up or run out of ideas, but Ernest Shackleton's attitude reminds one of the Apollo 13 support crews in that failure was not an option. Everything great about the human species is seen in the efforts to discover an escape route from the pack ice, to find food in an almost lunar landscape and to send at least a few sailors to an island near the shipping lanes hundreds of miles from camp, the last chance for anyone to discover that Endurance's crew was still alive. Shackleton's refusal to give up, as well as resourcefulness in making unwasteful decisions, was the main reason for the rescue of the entire crew. Other than sled dogs, the antarctic didn't claim a single life - from this crew, anyway.