Why so much hype?

Too much of everything

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I had read the story of Robinson Crusoe before I saw the movie at our 5th run neighborhood theater and found the movie to be a pretty straightforward recreation of the book. It was impressive. I was interested in the story. If there were allegories, I didn't recognize them. Bunuel? Never heard of him. Robinson Crusoe was another on the list of color films, like Disney's Treasure Island and Great Locomotive Chase, The Searchers, Shane, The Command, Sign of the Pagan, Fort Ti, that were much more alluring than the usual B&W fare and better remembered.Now, in the 21st century I watched it again and it lived up exactly to my expectations. Still no allegories, but isn't that a refreshing change? I probably overrate it at 9 because of the nostalgia factor. It would be an ideal movie to take a pre-teen grandson to.

A surprisingly straightforward adaptation of Defoe's classic novel from cinema's master of the surreal, The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe is firstly in need of a spruce up as the print I saw was blurry to the point of distraction.Journeyman actor Dan O'Herlihy in the role of Crusoe is naturally called upon to carry the film and he pretty much delivers the kind of performance you'd expect a journeyman actor to deliver; bland, unremarkable but inoffensive. He sucks in his tummy so that his rib cage juts out like the prow of a boat, while his louche character shows a surprising aptitude for survival given that he never engaged in any kind of physical labour prior to his calamitous voyage – which, Bunuel suggests, was undertaken with the object of securing slaves for sale back in the homeland.Some of the scenery, filmed presumably on the Mexican coastline, is breathtaking (even if it is blurry), and provides an engaging diversion when the film plods, which it does for much of the time. We see Crusoe salvaging materials from the wreckage of the ill-fated ship, building a shelter, fetching water, puzzling over how the island's sole cat managed to get herself pregnant, baking bread, getting drunk and a little teary-eyed. It's all a little hum-drum to be honest (although the scene where Crusoe, in the grip of loneliness, shouts into a valley just to hear a human voice – his own – speak back to him, is a memorable moment), but things do at least pick up a bit when Man Friday washes up on the coast, intended as the main course of the cannibals who live on the neighbouring island (who obviously felt like grabbing a takeaway to eat out that day).This being a Bunuel film, there's obviously stuff going on under the surface, much of it to do with the nature of Crusoe's relationship with – and eventual questioning of – God, and for what purpose he has been set down on a godforsaken island in the middle of nowhere; a sexual undercurrent is also present – let's face it, after 28 years it would be unnatural if it wasn't – Crusoe dresses his scarecrow in a woman's dress and then longingly fondles its hem and then, when Friday innocently dons it as a hunting garb, staunchly resists the homo-erotic temptation that is (rather timidly – this is the fifties, after all) thrown in his path. And, this being a Bunuel film, we are of course treated to a somewhat surreal hallucination sequence suffered by Crusoe as he lies sick in his shelter.More an interesting curio than a work of much worth, it's a film that's worth watching simply for its rarity value.

Watched this last night and of course I loved the story since it's one that I seemed to of learnt from a very young age. I have to say tho that I'm a little surprised at the relatively high rating of 7.5 here, perhaps it's more to do with the directors reputation than the quality of the film ?.The film is just above average thanks mainly to the close adherence of the source novel, and the bravo performance of Dan O'Herlihy as the title character, he does well to keep the viewer intrigued as to his state of mind, and of course we root for him during the films crucial final reel.Nothing to write home about here tho, 6/10 mainly for Dan.

In maybe his only time of giving into a commercial project, Luis Bunuel, deliciously notorious surrealist and satirist, took off his usual run of Mexican-produced films of the decade and adapted The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. On the surface, if one weren't familiar with the director's works at all, it has the seeming quality of being an average B-movie adventure of a man in solitude who is saved by his man Friday and his own resourcefulness. The story of the cast away has ended up having better days, specifically in Zemeckis's Cast Away, as far as with how the actual details of the story unfurl. It boils down to this: Crusoe gets shipwrecked on an island, takes what he can from the ship (some supplies, actually lots, a few animals), builds a camp, and little by little after the novelty of a deserted island wears off he goes near mad in loneliness. That is until the cannibals arrive, dropping off a man whom Robinson names Friday and quasi-domesticates as his servant-cum-friend. This is a story that even school-children know, and has even appeared as a goof on a Peabody & Sherman cartoon.But the fun in watching this rendition of Crusoe is for fans of the director to see what he does with the material. It's not a perfect affair, truth be told, as Bunuel isn't the greatest director of suspense, particularly in the climax. But what is essential for a film with as basic a plot as this to have is an understanding of what can be subverted, lightly and slightly twisted into personal expression. This is nothing new for many of today's famous filmmakers ala Spielberg or Scorsese, but for Bunuel he approaches it in ways that his best fans will be keen to look for and get in nice quantities. For example, as he is known more often than not as a director of dreams (his best film, Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, has dreams within dreams in savagely playful fashion), we see Crusoe having a dream early on where there's soft gel on the sides of the screen (maybe to appease the producers, who knows), and in it Crusoe dreams of his father pouring sauce or other on a pig, and images of Crusoe in water, cut together and acted in truly classic style. It's probably even one of his better dream sequences, followed up by another later on that features a pretty funny image to boot.Actually, part of what makes Bunuel's Robinson Crusoe so enjoyable is spotting the references to past films- his palm covered with some bugs speaks right away cheerfully to Un Chien Andalou- as well as just mildly absurd usages of animals on screen (how did the cat have kittens?), and even Christian imagery in simply showing Crusoe with his huge beard, which Dan O'Hearlihy sports proudly for most of the film, and even carrying what looks like a cross (!) but turns out to be the stand for a scarecrow. Then there's also the aspect to the bond between Crusoe and Friday, which is almost a pop-art form of one of Bunuel's own treatises on the division of the classes in many of his films (i.e. Viridiana and Exterminating Angel). In a way it works just as well as a simple story anyway, because Bunuel is able to have his cake and eat it, by having a tale that as stilted it might be in its not-quite-high-or-low budget and form of writing/narration at times is fairly gripping in an 'old-school' way, as well as enough room to bring out his flashes of brilliant imagery and jabs of surrealism, and even absurdism.