Product description

Beyond The Sea

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Average customer rating: 4.0

Binding : DVD
EAN : 5017239192852
Label : Entertainment in Video
Manufacturer : Entertainment in Video
Publisher : Entertainment in Video
Release date : 2005-04-18
Title : Beyond The Sea
Actor : Array
Audience rating : Suitable for 12 years and over
Format : Array
Languages : Array
Number of items : 1
Region code : 2
Running time : 118
Studio : Entertainment in Video
Theatrical releaseDate : 2004

Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-12-01 rating:

Fabulous music, shame about the picture
I was a teenager at the time of the original, so I really enjoyed the music in this film and couldn't tell the difference between the real Bobby Darin and Kevin Spacey's excellent portrayal and singing, but maybe someone with more sense should have produced the film.

The plot was a disjointed mess of fantasy scenes, having more in common with Busby Berkeley in the 1930s than the 1960s. Bobby talking to his dead mother and performing with himself as a child was beyond belief.

Also, surely they could have found a more appropriate actress to play Sandra Dee who was blonde, cute and curvy. Kate Bosworth, wearing a silly grin and permanently vacant expression throughout, bore no resemblance to the original. (To see the real one, check out her films - A Summer Place and Come September (the one with Rock Hudson) on Amazon and judge for yourself).

Pity to turn a good idea into a disappointing film, so 3/5 stars just for the music is the best I can do.

review by: date: 2007-04-13 rating:

Not Nearly As Good As I Expected
I found this film quite disappointing especially given all the hype which surrounded it's release.

Firstly Spacey does not convince as the young Bobby Darin, he was simply too old for the part & so had to resort to a tortuous method of story-telling in order to get around that particular problem. Having said that I enjoyed his performance, and his singing was very good (although his dance routines left me with much the same feeling as I get when my Dad takes to the floor at family weddings!). The actress playing Sandra Dee (sorry can't remember her name) gives a pretty but one dimensional performance, the boy playing the very young Darin is, at times, excrutiatingly bad. The film, to me, felt muddled and often lacking in cohesive direction.

If you like films of this genre to tell a story, to give insights into character and behaviour and relationships, and if you like a tale with a beginning, middle and end then this DVD is probably not for you. However, if you like Spacey, enjoy the songs of Bobby Darin and can accept the "story" as being (very) incompletely told in a series of (often unrelated)snap shots of Bobby's life then you may well enjoy it. I didn't.

review by: date: 2007-02-16 rating:

Entertaining - and Spacey's superb
I thoroughly enjoyed this film. I know little of Bobby Darin (bit before my time) and it was only during the film that I recognised some of the songs. It's entertaining on various levels - including the musical-like performances that the film slipped into now and again - and had my husband and I hooked from start to finish. Kevin Spacey, who I've previously taken little notice of, was superb - from his faultless acting to his surprisingly good voice. Sit back and enjoy.

review by: ea_solinas date: 2007-02-03 rating:

Under the sea
"Beyond the Sea" opened the same year as another bio-pic of a classic musical talent, "De Lovely." This was Kevin Spacey's pet project. Unfortunately, "Sea" doesn't manage to be much more than that -- it feels bloodless and overstuffed, and we never get to know any of the people in it.

It opens with Darin (Spacey) filming a movie about himself, and generally acting like a diva -- and being interrupted by the specter of himself as a young boy. Cue cringes.

His story shoots back to see himself as a critically ill, fatherless child, whose "mother" (actually his grandmother) says he'll be bigger than Sinatra. Despite the odds, he becomes a massive star, even shooting a Hollywood movie alongside Rock Hudson and Sandra Dee (Kate Bosworth).

He marries the beautiful girl after a whirlwind courtship, and after a rocky start, all seems to be going well -- they have a child, wealth, and a beautiful home. But then his "sister" reveals that she is his biological mother, and Bobby falls to pieces. Now he sets out to find himself -- as a person, and as a musician.

"Beyond the Sea" is both too long and too short -- it only looks at a few parts of Darin's life, and yet it feels overstuffed. The story itself focuses on only a few aspects of Darin's life, but it pushes them so hard that Darin himself -- and the entirety of his life -- get lost in the muddle.

And while some movies could have managed, "Beyond the Sea" doesn't. It skips the entire latter half of Darin's life -- divorce, teen idol phase, mother's death, et cetera -- so we can hear more about how Darin was sick as a kid, and how finding out about Mom messed him up forever. The movie feels like a series of unconnected scenes that are strung together on those plot threads.

Worse, Spacey is a very awkward writer/director -- that horribly Broadway-style opener proves it. There are a few good moments, like Darin dedicating a song to his mother. But most of the movie is awkward or even laughable, such as the scene where Darin does his "knight of Camelot" routine in the bedroom. I dare you not to laugh at that -- or at seriously delivered lines like, "Memories are like moonbeams, we do with them what we will."

Despite his directorial shortcomings, Spacey makes a decent Darin -- he has some onstage charisma, and he sings nicely, and does a tolerable job in most of the other scenes. He even includes Darin's snipey behavior ("Let me tell you something, blondie, you're not exactly Audrey Hepburn!"). But Bosworth seems to be sleepwalking in her role, and the "young Bobby" is simply awful.

"Beyond the Sea" could have been a good movie, even with the awkward direction. But in the end, it fails to do one important thing: Tell us about Bobby Darin's life.

review by: date: 2007-01-28 rating:

Even Spacey has an off day
This movie is flawed in many ways, but let's start with what's good. Spacey is, as ever, excellent and his singing is a revelation. He doesn't swing like Darin, but who does/did - apart from Sinatra. The casting is good, and the story of Darin's success in spite of life-threatening illness is made for film. So where does it go wrong? Almost everywhere, I'm afraid. First off, Spacey, aged 45/46 when this was made, plays Darin from late teens to premature death at 37. Quite simply, it just isn't believable. Then, the movie seems not to understand what it is. At times it is a musical, and a weak one at that, and then it becomes a straight-forward biopic, then back to a musical again. There is some pointless interaction between Spacey as the old Darin and the actor playing him as a kid. It might have seemed a good idea at the time, but it just emphasises that Spacey is too old for the part. There are also problems with continuity, as if money was running out or Spacey was losing interest. All in all, even though a Darin and Spacey fan, I found it embarrassing to watch and was glad when it was over. Save your money.

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