The 500th anniversary of C. Columbus's voyage to what he thought was India was deemed worthy of two major motion pictures (no, "Carry On Columbus" doesn't count). The trouble is that at the time there was much general apathy in the world as a whole about the whole thing, as evidenced by the lack of box office success for both this and the comparatively better "1492: Conquest Of Paradise" - neither was much to write home about, but "Christopher Columbus: The Discovery" was the worse of the two by far, and it's fortunate that Alexander Salkind will be remembered for "Superman" instead of this (it was his last production).
In pretty much every department from casting (Tom Selleck as the King of Spain. Why?) through writing ("Admiral Colon, you have won our respect and our admiration. Now where's my gold?" Note: In spite of the title, the legendary seafarer is correctly referred to as Cristobal Colon throughout... except when someone calls him "Christopher Columbus" at one point) to "special" effects, on top of an ending that leaves a really bad taste in the mouth - we cut from the misery left behind in the New World to our hero exulting as Cliff Eidelman's wildly over-the-top music bursts forth - the movie's embarrassing, shoddy and offensive. Not that the other Columbus movie didn't have its own faults (the exceptional dullness is only one of its problems) but at least Ridley Scott and Co. studied it with a bit more depth than this tosh.
Funny how Catherine Zeta-Jones never mentions this one.
In pretty much every department from casting (Tom Selleck as the King of Spain. Why?) through writing ("Admiral Colon, you have won our respect and our admiration. Now where's my gold?" Note: In spite of the title, the legendary seafarer is correctly referred to as Cristobal Colon throughout... except when someone calls him "Christopher Columbus" at one point) to "special" effects, on top of an ending that leaves a really bad taste in the mouth - we cut from the misery left behind in the New World to our hero exulting as Cliff Eidelman's wildly over-the-top music bursts forth - the movie's embarrassing, shoddy and offensive. Not that the other Columbus movie didn't have its own faults (the exceptional dullness is only one of its problems) but at least Ridley Scott and Co. studied it with a bit more depth than this tosh.
Funny how Catherine Zeta-Jones never mentions this one.