IMDb > 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1997/II) (TV)

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1997/II) (TV) More at IMDbPro »

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Overview

User Rating:
5.4/10   530 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 40% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Rod Hardy
Writers (WGA):
Jules Verne (novel)
Brian Nelson (teleplay)
Contact:
View company contact information for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
11 May 1997 (USA) more
Genre:
Adventure | Romance | Sci-Fi more
Plot:
The year is 1886, when New England's fishing harbours are the scene for a "creature of unknown origin" destroying ships at sea... more | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
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User Comments:
James Mason's mantle is safe around his shoulders more (23 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Michael Caine ... Captain Nemo

Patrick Dempsey ... Pierre Arronax

Mia Sara ... Mara

Bryan Brown ... Ned Land

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje ... Cabe Attucks (as Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje)
John Bach ... Thierry Arronax

Nicholas Hammond ... Saxon
Peter McCauley ... Admiral McCutcheon
Kerry Armstrong ... Lydia Rawlings
Cecily Chun ... Imei (as Cecily Anna)
Ken Senga ... Shimoda
Gerry Day ... Nitongu
Steven Grives ... Garfield (as Steven Grieves)
Boe Kaan ... Ivanda
Damian Monk ... Dennison
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Additional Details

Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parents
Runtime:
Brazil:158 min | 60 min (3 episodes)
Country:
USA | Australia
Language:
English
Color:
Color
Aspect Ratio:
1.33 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Stereo
Filming Locations:
Australia more
Company:
Frederick S. Pierce Company more

Fun Stuff

Goofs:
Anachronisms: As Thierry Arronax makes his speech from the ship's gangway, a woman waives a U.S. flag with the stars in the pattern that became official in 1890 or 1896. The film is set in 1886. more
Quotes:
Captain Nemo: No-one will ever use the Nautilus as an instrument of conquest... no-one. more
Movie Connections:
Featured in Journey to the Center of the Earth (1999) (TV) more

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User Comments

   (Comment on this title)
7 out of 10 people found the following comment useful.
James Mason's mantle is safe around his shoulders, 20 September 2000
Author: (tom_amity@hotmail.com) from Lincoln, Nebraska

I have nothing against fun and fantasy. But this piece has so little to do with Verne's story that I wonder why the writers didn't just dispense with their token analogies to it and create new characters!

Yes, Caine's performance is "intense", but also utterly meaningless: his Nemo has none of the subtlety, the pensiveness, the drivenness of James Mason's; the two can no more be compared than Kevin Costner's Robin Hood can be compared to Errol Flynn's, or Marlon Brando's performance as Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty to Charles Laughton's. The ballyhooed "intensity" of Caine's portrayal resolves itself into very little more than hypermanic nuttiness. (Maybe Caine was trying so hard to avoid being compared to Mason that he couldn't figure any other way to do the role than to toss all subtlety overboard?)

The character of Attucks, of course, is the "man of action" that the plot needs, thus totally eclipsing Ned Land and making the latter's presence gratuitous. So if the writers were so obsessed with political correctness that they needed to add a nonwhite character, why in the world not just make Ned himself nonwhite?

And haven't we had enough of upstarts trying to improve on Verne by adding a love interest? Apparently not: this version gives Nemo a daughter, who sails with him on the Nautilus and with whom Aronnax (here depicted as a young sexpot) has an affair.

Of course, the fact that this Nautilus has a multi-ethnic crew (an idea hinted at, but not developed by, Verne himself) is a nice touch, but one that doesn't take us very far because this version tells us so little about Nemo's and the crew's background. In conclusion, a lot of fine acting talent is wasted on this philosophically confused piece of work.

Verne has suffered a bewildering number of bad adaptations, but this is ridiculous.

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