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1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)

Rate: 5
Viewed: 7/10

7/10: Oh, how pretty the Spanish costumes are!

That's all I liked about 1492: Conquest of Paradise. Gérard Depardieu does a nice job of playing Christopher Columbus, but I wish he had more screen time to develop his character. Armand Assante is good as well, and he looks perfect for the era. Michael Wincott overdoes his part and may have been miscast.

The film is a tale of two halves with neither fleshed out well. I got lost during the last forty-five minutes which feels like a rushed job. For sure, it's an ambitious picture, but the running time of 150 minutes is simply not enough. If 1492: Conquest of Paradise is a four-hour epic instead, I can handle it because of the right elements as long as they're properly developed. The whole tale about the discovery of the New World is certainly fascinating.

Although Columbus was primarily responsible for the destruction of the American Indians, what he did to cross the "uncrossable" ocean has to be a remarkable achievement if I think about it more. Anyway, it's so, so, so cute that director Ridley Scott waited until 1992 to release the film officially to show how cool(!) it's exactly 500 years after the fact. My goodness...he must be this ridiculous, huh?

All in all, 1492: Conquest of Paradise, a massive box-office failure, has left me desiring for more.

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