Redundant and unnecessary.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

In the 18th century, latitude is readily observable but longitude is nearly impossible. The inability to find longitude is the difference between life and death. After one particularly devastating loss, the government offers £20k for a practical solution. The solution lies in a marine chronometer that can work on the rolling seas. Clockmaker John Harrison (Michael Gambon) creates such a clock as he struggles to prove his invention's accuracy. In post-WWII, Rupert Gould (Jeremy Irons) becomes obsessed with finding Harrison's clocks and restoring them to their working conditions.It's an eye opening slice of scientific and exploration history. It seems like such an unsexy slice of history but it's such an important one. Surprisingly, this movie makes it compelling. It's a great way to see into another era. Harrison is the quintessential underdog and Michael Gambon does a great job making him a socially awkward man. There is a compelling competition with the scientific old guard. Jeremy Irons' modern story isn't quite as compelling. Overall, this is very enlightening history lesson and a well-made one at that.

WARNING - may contain spoiler for the historically challengedDava Sobel, one-time science writer at the New York Times, wrote a little book published in 1995 on the 18th century search for a reliable method for determining longitude at sea. Since longitude is time, essentially, it seemed that the solution might lie in accurate time-pieces, and John Harrison, a carpenter from the North of England who had already built some superb wooden church clocks, decided to have a crack at the 20,000 pound prize put up for a solution. But he had rivals, not fellow clock makers but astronomers who thought that their understanding of the celestial clockwork, the motions of the heavens, would give them a solution. The astronomers, being generally an upper-class lot, and having representatives on the Board of Longitude which supervised the contest, had the edge, but in the end after over thirty years of clock-building, and trials at sea and in the committee-room, Harrison won, more or less, as his clock was far easier to use that the cumbersome lunar observation method worked out by the astronomers (`the lunatics' as Harrison dubbed them).The producers here have turned this relatively simple tale into an epic spanning 70 years or so of maritime history. There are over 80 speaking parts, numerous voyages, a naval action or two, and endless committee meetings. Despite early success with his larger carriage style clocks, Harrison, wonderfully played by Michael Gambon, strikes continuing obstacles thrown up by the Board (he has not the guile to go round them), but plods on, latterly with the aid of his son William, until at last the Board is shamed into paying him for the invention, though the actual prize is never awarded. You can beat City Hall, at least if you get the mayor onside. A youthful and then fairly sane George III, a keen `natural philosopher' (scientist) eventually took an interest in Harrison's case and put pressure on the Board.There's not a lot to say about this British production (made with A & E money), which is fine. The parallel story of war-damaged Rupert Gould (Jeremy Irons) who dedicated himself to restoring Harrison's clocks in the 1920s, destroying his marriage and social standing in the process, is artfully intercut with the main tale and works as a kind of a coda to Harrison's story, though it comes perilously close to interfering with it sometimes. We spend a lot of time at sea, visit Jamaica and Barbados, and get a fairly good picture of the beastliness of the 18th century sailor's lot. Without a doubt things were better at the end than at the beginning of the century in the Navy, partly due to Captain Cook and sauerkraut, but Harrison's work made an enormous difference to life at sea, once his designs were produced in quantity. The British can legitimately be proud of Harrison, if not the upper-class twits who tried to thwart him, and here they have paid him appropriate tribute.

A unique story about the institutional ignorance of bureaucracy. Wonderfully written, with focus upon the parallels in response to adversity in the lives of the father and son who developed the first accurate timepieces to insure safe navigation, and their WW II era admirer who restored their original clocks.The directing in this film is superb, the cinematography brilliant. A viewer can't help but experience visceral empathy with the protagonists and equally despise the studied ignorance of those who made the clockmakers' lives so difficult. It is a pleasure to view a film in which all the actors are so effortlessly competent.

Who would of thought that a movie about Longitude could be so engaging? Great acting and a compelling story telling turn an historical footnote into a great drama.The story flip flops back and forth between the life of a shell shocked (literally) 20th century academic and the tale of an 18th century clockmaker, John Harrison, obsessed with winning the Prize of Queen Anne for calculating longitude. The surprising part is that the two loosely related plot lines work so well together, despite frequent and rapid cuts back and forth. This is a tribute to the great acting skills of the cast, including Jeremy Irons as the 20th century academic. At times, you have to wonder what the heck Iron's struggles with sanity have to do with the 18th century story, but it all seems to quietly tie together in the end.Harrison knows that if he can develop an accurate watch, solving longitude was a breeze. This may seem academic, but the lives of British seamen were literally at stake. Developing an accurate timepiece was a far more difficult task than we can today imagine, and Harrison faced a skeptical board of theoreticians who preferred more complex scientific solutions than they thought could be provided by a humble clockmaker. The board utterly fails to grasp that the simple solution is the product of a profoundly complex and innovative device.We think so highly of the great technological achievements of our times, and they are great. We need to be reminded from time to time, as this film does so well, that the breakthroughs of other generations were in there time quite profound. Moreover, we would not be where we are today without them. As the great Sir Issac Newton once said, "If I have seen further, it is because I have stood on the backs of giants".