
Genoan navigator Christopher Columbus has a dream to find an alternative route to sail to the Indies, by traveling west instead of east, across the unchartered Ocean sea. After failing to find backing from the Portugese, he goes to the Spanish court to ask Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand for help. After surviving a grilling from the Head of the Spanish Inquisition Tomas de Torquemada, he eventually gets the blessing from Queen Isabella and sets sail in three ships to travel... (Full plot summary below)
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Genoan navigator Christopher Columbus has a dream to find an alternative route to sail to the Indies, by traveling west instead of east, across the unchartered Ocean sea. After failing to find backing from the Portugese, he goes to the Spanish court to ask Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand for help. After surviving a grilling from the Head of the Spanish Inquisition Tomas de Torquemada, he eventually gets the blessing from Queen Isabella and sets sail in three ships to travel into the unknown. Along the way he must deal with sabotage from Portugese spies and mutiny from a rebellious crew.
Leave your thoughts about Christopher Columbus: The Discovery.
| Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanChristopher Columbus: The Discovery lacks even the misplaced energy of a camp folly. It's limp and exhausted -- a bloodless swashbuckler. |
| BrianOrndorf.comBrian OrndorfThe drama never catches fire, cycling through the same beats of uncertainty and blame to a point of screen stasis. The opening driving montage of Manos: The Hands of Fate has more of a filmmaking zip. |
| Deseret News (Salt Lake City)Chris HicksIf this film were less superficial it might warrant some analysis about the way the character of Columbus is portrayed. But it's all so silly. |
| South Florida Sun-SentinelCandice RussellDry as an outdated textbook, scintillating as the droning of your worst schoolteacher, Christopher Columbus: The Discovery is a colossal disaster. |
| Seattle TimesJeff ShannonThe film benefits greatly from the use of three totally authentic ship replicas, but the real thing -- as presented in the PBS series about Columbus -- is still much more inspiring. |
| Los Angeles TimesPeter RainerIt's not politically correct. It's also not cinematically correct, humanly correct or historically correct. |
| New York TimesVincent CanbyExpensive, sloppy and, at its most ambitious, a frail reminder of the Warner Brothers swashbucklers that Michael Curtiz used to turn out with Errol Flynn. |
| VarietyLisa NesselsonJohn Glen's take on the Genovese explorer adds up to perfectly serviceable commercial entertainment -- there are a few moments where Kirk Douglas or Charlton Heston would have felt right at home. |
| Chicago TribuneGene SiskelGeorge Corraface would look more comfortable in a Calvin Klein underwear ad than at the helm of a ship. |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThis movie takes one of history's great stories and treats it in such a lackluster manner that Columbus' voyage seems as endless to us as it did to his crew. |