Product Details

• Actors: Armand Assante, Rachel Ward, Bryan Brown, Jacqueline McKenzie, Grant Bowler
• Directors: Russell Mulcahy
• Writers: Bill Kerby, David Williamson, John Paxton, Nevil Shute
• Producers: Carol Hughes, Errol Sullivan, Greg Coote
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Hallmark
• VHS Release Date: October 17, 2000
• Run Time: 195 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (86 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004WI5P
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #227,704 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

116 of 132 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On The Beach: A Brilliant Tele-Movie, May 24, 2005

By 

Petar Vodogaz "Commissioner" (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On the Beach (DVD)

I have watched On The Beach 6 times and have ended up tearing up at the end each time. The movie which was initially created as a 3.5 TV Mini-Series and was nominated for Golden Globe - which would have been well deserved - is a joint Australian and American production that has all the good and bad parts of what makes us human in the movie. This movie is the best movie I have watched to date. I first watched 'On The Beach' on Australian television with my mum and step-dad and this movie touched me in a way no other movie has ever. Everything about this movie is brilliant. It's a movie that doesn't have a happy ending and a movie that makes the viewer think. The integral message and the theme of the movie is anti nuclear and poses many interesting self requesting questions like "How would I react to this situation or "What would I do if I knew I had a short period of life left?"

Bryan Brown who plays Julian Osborne a scientist is a great Australian actor who is well established and has great acting skill and polishes off this performance with pure excellence. His acting is superb.

Rachel Ward another great Australian actress plays Moira Davidson and is a show stealer...she has such a aplomb on the screen and her character goes through so many changes and emotions through the movie.

But my favourite character is Commander Dwight Towers who is played by Armand Assante who is such an accomplished actor and plays the role of the head actor with so much emotion. Two other Australian actors also have big roles in the movie and are secondary characters to the three mentioned. All up through and through, the acting is excellent and the casting has been well picked.

The movie is long and to completely and fully tell the story of a world winding down and a civilization falling apart as well as tell the stories of each character and their interactions together and to the situation on hand the length of the movie was warranted.

'On The Beach' is adapted from Neville Shute's novel and is directed to the screen by Russel Mulcahy. My word of advice for any reader who will watch this movie is to have a box of tissues for the ending is a tear jerker.

This movie portrays the ending of humanity after China and the USA go to war and the war turns into a full nuclear exchange. There is alot of course language. The soundtrack within this movie is has great as the actual movie.

If I could I would give the movie 10/10.

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Powerful" isn't the word for it, July 8, 2007

By 

a writer/reader/listener - See all my reviews

This review is from: On the Beach (DVD)

Nevil Shute's On the Beach is the most haunting, terrifying, and depressing Cold War-era post-apocalyptic tale ever told, and with the 2000 production it has now been successfully translated to the screen not once, but twice. Both of the film versions retain the wrenching impact of the novel, and in many ways the new 2000 version does this better than either of the earlier efforts. **SPOILERS FOLLOW** For one thing, the longer, miniseries-style treatment lets the production develop the characters more fully than did the first film, especially their attachments to one another, so that when these attachments are inexorably ripped apart by the radioactivity, the viewer feels it all the more keenly. The final scene involving the Holmes family, superbly acted (to the point that, frankly, made me concerned for the mental welfare of the child actress), is nothing short of devastating. Even though I knew the story well from reading (and rereading) the novel and seeing the earlier film, this scene caught me unprepared for its sheer force and gave me a couple of sleepless nights. Another key to the newer film's effectiveness is the relative lack of squeamishness of the modern viewer, which allowed the producers to incorporate more of the grisly details of radiation sickness into the film's imagery. One of the new movie's most poignant scenes takes place when we see, through Julian Osborne's eyes, a queue of people waiting to receive their cyanide pills, and we catch a fleeting glimpse of a forlorn and pretty young woman as she vomits. The expression of shame and hopelessness on her face is priceless and (I'll use the word once again) wrenching. Still another element is the change to San Francisco; while the earlier versions have the city essentially undamaged (except by radiation), this version presents it as having taken a direct nuclear hit. The submarine crew's exclamations of horror-mingled despair as it sees a real-time through-the-periscope video of the collapsed Golden Gate Bridge and the ruins of the city is one of the most important moments in a carefully-choreographed downward spiral. The production is good at giving hope and then slowly stealing it away, and the San Francisco viewing, along with the sudden reading of 150 rads off Anchorage (again, linked with the crew's explosive response) are the film's major turning points in this regard. The "prayer scene" near the end of the film shows sailors who are no longer U.S. naval personnel but walking ghosts; it is if they (and by extension we) have transformed from viewers to participants in the terrible drama that they once saw only through the periscope. Eschewing "Waltzing Matilda" (the running theme fore the first film), the producers opted for a more contemplative score (punctuated with some sinister themes during the submarine voyage) that moves near the film's ending to a heavily religious/choral style that resembles a dirge for mankind (which was no doubt the intension).

The film does, of course, have its weaknesses. The biggest, for me, was Armand Assante's portrayal of Dwight Towers. Assante's Towers seems to be more of a cross between Rocky Balboa and a (stereo)typical Marine officer or senior noncom than a (stereo)typical naval officer. Perhaps the casting department was Australian and this was its idea of a (stereotypical) American nuclear warrior, but Assante's characterization just didn't ring right, especially compared to Gregory Peck's more equable portrayal (a word Shute uses to describe Towers more than once). Bryan Brown's Julian Osborne, too, is more harshly portrayed in this version than the earlier movie, and (I believe) the novel as well. On the other hand, Rachel Ward's portrayal of Moira Davidson is excellent, if perhaps a bit bitchier than the previous versions. Peter and Mary Holmes are likewise perfectly acted by Grant Bowler and Jacqueline McKenzie. McKenzie's almost waiflike Mary is exquisite; while watching her I found myself thinking that with her looks she would have made a perfect Elf in The Lord of the Rings.

The other weaknesses were relatively minor and even nitpicking. Towers is a four-striper, a captain in navy rank, but several people (including naval officers) refer to him repeatedly as Commander even while looking at his shoulder boards. The long-dead corpse in Anchorage blinks a few times. Finally, the ending (which does for Shute's novel what My Fair Lady did for Shaw's Pygmalion, if not a weakness, is a definite change. It seems to offer a faint hope that love is stronger than death, which softens the sheer brutality of the film's ending sequences. I myself welcomed that softening, but others might not.

All in all, this is probably the most profoundly disturbing film I've ever seen, including the previous version. It's also more disturbing even than the original novel. If you like an emotional tour de force this is it, but be prepared for what awaits you; this is not a film for the faint of heart.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worthwhile Remake of 1959 Classic, August 2, 2003

By 

Benjamin J Burgraff (Las Vegas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: On the Beach [VHS] (VHS Tape)

It is easy to take potshots at a Made-for-Cable remake, particularly when the film remade is a cherished classic, such as 1959's 'On the Beach'. "Armand Assante is no Gregory Peck", "Bryan Brown is no Fred Astaire", "Stanley Kramer made the point better, in black and white, in an hour less time"...These are the most frequent criticisms, and they certainly have merit!

But if you take the time to watch this film, you'll find the 2000 version actually compares favorably with the original, and, in some ways, actually improves upon it. First, Australian actors are finally playing the Australian roles. This is not meant as a slap at Anthony Perkins, Ava Gardner, or Fred Astaire; Stanley Kramer casted easily-recognizable screen icons so he wouldn't have to spend much time developing character (Only Perkins has any real backstory in the film), but, by casting Americans, any Australian flavor is either diluted or caricatured. The remake is rich in character, with an authenticity that can't be faked.

This carries over to the casting of Armand Assante as Commander Towers, as well. Gregory Peck was such a legend by the time the original was made, that his character, other than the lack of acceptance of his family's death, isn't explored; it is simply Peck playing Peck. Assante, bull-like and clearly in charge, is given several scenes demonstrating the love and loyalty he shares with his crew, explaining why his sense of duty has to take precedent over his new love with Moira (Rachel Ward) more effectively than Peck could. Assante is remarkably good in the role, as is Ward, taking Ava Gardner's role from the original.

The remake takes a much harder-edged view of a civilization facing death. Riots and looting are commonplace, there is less comfort from religion, and authority is breaking down, piecemeal, throughout the country. Anti-U.S. sentiment, never exhibited in the original, is rampant, particularly when the U.S. submarine arrives in port. The ravages of nuclear holocaust are shown; San Francisco, which was inexplicably intact in the original, is here a shattered husk, twisted and crushed. Powerful images are frequent in the remake, and won't soon be forgotten.

Not that the remake is without faults. The final Australian Grand Prix, Astaire's shining moment, is gone, as is his suicide by carbon monoxide, with a smile on his face, behind the wheel of his championship car (Brown's crashing through a billboard in his Ferrari just doesn't pack the same emotional wallop). Having Moira fantasize that Towers abandons his crew and returns to her at film's end lacks the poignancy of seeing a doomed Ava Gardner, standing alone beside her car, as she watches the sub, and her love, sail away to die. And I MISSED hearing 'Waltzing Matilda'!

As anti-war statements, both versions deserve credit, and as a human story, full of joy, sorrow, and ultimate tragedy, 2000's 'On the Beach' certainly holds it's own with it's illustrious predecessor.

It is a film worth having, in any collection!