05 Jun 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA RE-REVIEW

This is part of my ‘Re-Review’ series, where I revisit a movie that I haven’t seen in several years to evaluate if my opinion has changed with time.

Old Opinion: Fun adventure story when I was 10, but probably dated by now, right?

New Opinion: Still a great movie, and a solid throwback to a bygone era of Disney live-action movies

As a kid, my family would go to the video store to rent VHS movies; the Disney section was always reliable, since we could watch whatever we wanted. That’s when I first saw 1954’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. My only memory is a fight between a submarine and a giant squid, which was awesome to 10-year-old me. But at 44, I wondered if it was still worth watching. Since Disney remastered it in HD with Dolby surround, and it was only $5, I gave it a shot.

Good news: the movie is still great! Disney’s old-school live action movies featured simple characters very earnestly written and acted, clear stereotypes of good and evil. 20,000 LUtS represents this pattern and is narrated and told from the perspective of Dr. Pierre Aronnax, played with initial moral ambiguously by Paul Lukas. He serves as the narrative avatar for the audience, as he witnesses the struggle between hero Ned Land (a very young Kirk Douglas) and supposed villain Captain Nemo (James Mason).

The story is relatively simple: in 1868, a “sea monster” is destroying ships throughout the Pacific Ocean, and Dr. Aronnax partners with US Navy to investigate the rumors. Spoiler alert (for a 67-year-old movie based on a 151-year-old book): the sea monster turns out to be an advanced submarine, the Nautilus, commanded by Captain Nemo, who destroys the Naval vessel, but rescues the three survivors: Aronnax, his assistant Conseil (comic relief and Aronnax’s moral compass), and whaler Ned Land. As the wonder surrounding the Nautilus fades, all three must deal with the moral conundrum of being ancillary members of a crew on a ship whose captain is hell-bent on destroying ships that he deems dangerous to the oceans; basically, Nemo hates surface dwellers for the damage and disrespect they show the oceans.

The character journey of the main characters mirrors the narrative journey the audience takes with such synergism that the entire film is elevated by the experience itself. Douglas’ earnest but dumb Ned doesn’t appreciate Nemo’s Nautilus, but knows that killing innocent people is wrong. Aronnax recognizes the immorality of Nemo’s actions, but tends to justify it knowing the remarkable advances Nemo’s mind has brought into reality vis a vis the Nautilus. Nemo himself shows tremendous patience with his rescues because he respects Aronnax’s scholarly love for the ocean. Nemo’s patience is inversely proportional to the amount of backstory he shares, which presents both Aronnax and the audience with the same conundrum: maybe Nemo’s brilliant accomplishments, combined with a brutal background as a slave, make his crusade…ok?

Ultimately, Ned Land stays the moral course with a level of earnestness and integrity that only Disney delivers with unflinching seriousness.

I haven’t read the original story by Jules Verne, but I immediately bought it after watching the movie, because the film itself is such a great, fun adventure story wrapped in a clear morality tale that pits scientific progress against humanity and morality in a classic tale. As a kid, I didn’t care about any of that; I just wanted to watch the Nautilus versus a giant killer squid!

The effects are outdated, but so is almost everything about the movie. It’s a 67-year-old classic, and it holds up better than 90% of the films from that era, and with a terrific remaster by Disney, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is still a great watch.

Pros:

• Great performances by the featured cast
• Incredible special effects (for the era!)
• Great morality tale well-disguised as a classic action-adventure movie
• Great HD video/audio remaster of a movie that is really old

Cons:

• Some moments of cultural insensitivity that have not aged well
• Some may feel that it is a little too classically Disney earnest, bordering on cheesy

Rating: 4.5/5
It’s a pleasure to find a movie that I was afraid I had grown out of turn out to be one I’m eager to revisit again

Review by Jim Washburn