Critic Reviews
87
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
positive
11(92%)
mixed
1(8%)
negative
0(0%)
Showing 12 Critic Reviews
100
An exotic and gripping piece of Hollywood mythology, made with all the technical skill and gloss one associates with Irving Thalberg's MGM.
100
The weird and wonderful history of H. M. S. Bounty is magnificently transferred to the screen in Mutiny on the Bounty, which opened at the Capitol Theatre yesterday. Grim, brutal, sturdily romantic, made out of horror and desperate courage, it is as savagely exciting and rousingly dramatic a photoplay as has come out of Hollywood in recent years.
100
Expertly crafted and brilliantly acted, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY is one of the most durable and engrossing adventure films ever made.
100
Clark Gable was at his most virile and Charles Laughton at almost his most vicious and sneering in director Frank Lloyd's vigorous adaptation, the first and best screen version of the Bounty story. [22 March 1998, p.52]
90
Mutiny takes its time, and plenty of it, without being guilty of a single dull moment.
90
A stirring 18-centry sea adventure...For the kind of big budget, studio controlled romantic adventure that this is, it's very well done.
88
The production values, like the acting, are of the highest standard and the movie stands up well even by 21st century standards.
88
The story is spellbinding, the acting lusty and the spectacle everything you could expect from a Golden Age MGM production--though sometimes it's a bit too much on the monumental side.
80
The picture is forceful, realistic and horrible. It is badly edited, since it is allowed to run for two hours and a quarter, but in spite of this, and a few other minor defects, the case of the crew against the insane cruelty and avariciousness of Capt. Bligh is so powerfully presented that the injustice done to the men gets under one's skin to stir up a variety of emotion.
75
For Lloyd, Thalberg, and the writers, the point of the film was to tell a compelling story and, like the Bounty’s inebriated physician creating various tall tales to explain his wooden leg, facts and meanings ultimately just got in their way of crafting a great entertainment.
