Tales Of The Black Freighter Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES PLOT SUMMARY
In this comic-within-comic book read by one of 'Watchmen' characters, a mariner survives an attack from the dreaded pirates of the Black Freighter, but his struggle to return home to warn it has a horrific cost.
| Gerard Butler | The Sea Captain |
| Cam Clarke | Money Lender |
| Jared Harris | Ridley |
| Salli Saffioti | Sea Captain's Daughter |
| Lori Tritel | Sea Captain's Wife |
| Daniel DelPurgatorio |
7.10 out of 10 (1052 votes)
Visitor Reviews
alan moore should be happy...
posted on 10 Jul 2009...as this pretty much proves the essential nature of comic books. Not having the pieces integrated puts the movie(s) at a decided disadvantage . This DVD also included an excruciatingly overlong Culpepper Minute...although I do like the irony of it being called a minute and lasting an eternity, perhaps it was named the same in Moore's Watchmen. I don't recall...I will say Stephen McHattie as Hollis Mason was outstanding in this.Anyways, to me the Black Freighter story here ends up coming across hackneyed, and hack-kneed (and twisted-head, snapped-off-arm, etc...). The shocking gore piles up, and the story in my opinion is just not strong enough to stand on its own. While I'm at it, the Watchmen movie was alright, but reading the whole piece, in episodic installments, truly was a better way to enjoy it.So Moore is right in that his art-form was superior, despite the clearly loving attempt at a cinematic treatment. And yet, many folks will just not pick up anything that is book like (even if candy bars came with pages and a spine, I sense people would flee), so having the Watchmen and related items released is not such a heinous crime. Better than writing greeting cards to supplement one's creative pursuits.Anyways, if you watched the movie, and have not read the book, I'd only seek this out if you truly dig the graphic dark side of human behavior, but you'd be better served by exploring the graphic novel side that holds it all together.Thurston Hunger 3/10
loved it
posted on 18 Jun 2009A sea captain (Gerard Butler, 300 and RockNRolla) is the single person to survive a slaughter upon his ship by savage pirates aboard a black freighter, this 25 and a half minute animated adaptation of the secondary story in the Watchmen comic mini-series tells the macabre, heart-wrenching tail of his journey back to the Davidstown before the pirates can arrive there to pillage his homeland. While using a somewhat minimalistic animated stylization, the story as well as the visualizations work triumphantly and one can't help but be drawn into both. Not so much a companion piece to "Watchman" (although the case for that has been made ad nuaseum) as much as a brilliantly conceived piece that can indeed stand on it's own.My Grade: A DVD Extras:Under the Hood (a 37 and a half minute faux news interview with Hollis Mason about his book) a 225 minute featurette on the making-of; the first chapter of the Watchman motion comic, a first look at "Green Lantern: First Flight"; a prerequisite ad from Blu-Ray; and trailers for "Terminator: Salvation", "Watchmen" & the video game adaptations of Terminator & Watchmen
Great little short film whether you consider it "important" as part of Watchmen or not
posted on 16 Jun 2009It was a while after I watched Watchmen that I got around to getting this companion film – essentially put together from the reading of the comic of the same name within the comic of Watchmen. Not being a massive defender of the comic, I am not petty about it nor do I wish to debate for hours about how the film works without it, how the changes in the film affect this film, how you must be an idiot if you think this, or how you must be an idiot if you don't think that – and so on. No, instead I came to the short film knowing its parallels with the main story/film and yet also keen to see how it works as a film full stop.The answer is that it works very well because it produces a really gaudy depiction of the story with a much clearer link to the mental journey of Ozymandias and/or Rorschach – again I cannot be bothered to debate it on the message boards, for my money it works for both. The film is really well animated but not to the point that it is stylised to the point where it doesn't feel real. Instead, the gore and horror is made to feel very real and very horrible – not "owh gross" horrible in the way teen slasher films are, but it is really quite tangible how awful events are from start to finish. The story is quite simple but, because the horror is so well captured, it doesn't really matter if you watch this with Watchmen in mind or not – although of course it is meant for you to do so as well. The delivery is generally strong as well thanks mainly to the impressive delivery from Butler as the captain in narration. His haunted and nuanced voice is a great fit with the graphics – in particular the captain showing on his face what we are hearing.It is ironic because, while I thought that the full film of Watchmen struggled because of how it stuck to the events in the book to the detriment of the heart of the book, the Black Freighter appears to have captured both. I'll let others argue it out but for me it was best to strip this out of the film and, while it works well in the comic spread out over the telling of the main story, it works equally as well here as a companion short film.
This animated epic conveys terror, urgency and stunning visuals better than some films.
posted on 08 Jun 2009At only 25 minutes in length, The Black Freighter is short, sweet and right to the point, but it has just enough fluff and stylized visuals to make you say "Woah!" when you watch it. The Black Freighter tells the story of a Mariner, perfectly voiced by Gerry Butler, whose ship comes under attack by the Pirate fiends of the ghastly Black Freighter. His ship is destroyed and his men are murdered. As the freighter makes its way towards his home town, the Mariner now isolated on a nearby beach island thinks, plans and executes the unthinkable in order to get back to town before his family and his people are ravaged by those on the Black Freighter. But when the Mariner finally makes his way back, he discovers a truth so shocking he can barley believe it. As a fan of the graphic novel, Watchmen, I may be a little a bias in giving this short film a 9/10, but I've watched with several people, some familiar with the source material and some not, yet everyone who I've spoken with has loved it. I was extremely happy to find out that it was done in anime style, but rather in grim and dark style almost reminiscent of the cartoons of the 80s, but with high production values. Available on DVD at only 10$, its definitely worth the watch.-J.
just a terrific animated short film let alone 'companion piece'
posted on 04 Jun 2009The Tales of the Black Freighter series in the book of Watchmen was linked to the actual plot of Watchmen with merely one line (I won't mention by whom, but it's by one of the main characters, towards the end) that ties into what and why the story is in the book thematically. But on its own the story and art in Tales of the Black Freighter is done in the source like a real old-style pulpy comic with the underlying lines going across the panels, touched up with some really gruesome images and a moral that is about next to none - the guy is sent to damnation. As a short animated film Zack Snyder and his team decided to up the ante on the style, to make it a 2-dimensional stand-alone effort with the translation almost identical to that of the source (save, perhaps, for Snyder's penchant for ridiculous amounts of bloodshed, which are more appropriate here than in the actual Watchmen film).The animation here is gorgeous, doomed, and totally haunted. It might be considered a horror movie in some moments - the main character is on a beach and ties a bunch of his fallen dead shipmates onto a raft with body parts falling off and gas rising out from the intestines - but it's also about insanity and an unamicable downward spiral. Even having read the book and knowing it was a sad and disgustingly surreal piece of work I was not prepared for how the animation kicked my ass, so to speak. It's a startling expression of a descent into hell, a poetic fever dream done with some striking flashes of color, character, violence, and the whole disjointed but logical mood of the sea itself; when the seagulls and sharks come around it brings some of the most memorably savage bits in recent memory anywhere. Only once or twice did the action feel a little stilted, as animation can sometimes be, but it overall was a kind of minor triumph (Gerard Butler, I should add, also did very well as the voice of the pirate).
Stylish but completely pointless
posted on 23 May 2009Well, my title pretty much says it all. I liked Gerard Butler's voice acting, he added a lot of presence and a sense of urgency to his character. The animation was stylish and well made. There was really nothing done with the atmosphere. Production values were high.But unfortunately the story is uninteresting. There is no real tension. You get no back-story whatsoever. I have not read the graphic novel, so maybe this serves some kind of point, but standing on it's own I just cant see it.So fans of the graphic novel will probably like it, many others will not. But it is short enough to be worth a watch.
Standalone oddity
posted on 17 Apr 2009I am glad that this short film exists. I am also glad that it was not crosscut into Watchmen - it would have further fragmented a narrative already suffering from flashback fatigue. What worked on the page, where you got go back and re-read, does not necessarily work on screen.Taken on its own merits, Tales Of The Black Freighter works well as a macabre horror pirate story. The story, though slight, is solid, the animation is fine, and the voicework - primarily Gerard (SPARTAAAAA!!!!) Butler - is very good.However, I can't conceive of a 25 minute animated pirate horror movie ever being commissioned if it wasn't for the Watchmen connection.Does this matter? I don't think so.
An emotional masterpiece
posted on 17 Apr 2009I regard this more as something stand alone than something that accompanies The Watchmen. It is the perfect example of an animated short. The entire plot is chilling from start to end especially with Butlers sterling performance as the Sea Captain. The animation i was quite surprised how much i actually liked it as i did not expect a great deal of detail- but it looks extremely effective. I can only hope in the directors cut of Watchmen that it makes an appearance between the film as it did in the graphic novel. Though it is unfair to constantly relate this back to the film as it is its own work and has its own merits.For me it is exactly what i wanted it to be, a haunting exploration of the inner mind.
Decent enough I guess
posted on 13 Apr 2009I've been a fan of Watchmen ever since I first saw the movie in March.I have since read the graphic novel, bought a Rorschach poster and watched this short.I personally did not care for it when it was in the original graphic novel, so I was skeptical about watching this.It's a short 25min animated feature about a man who'se crew gets murdered by these evil demonic pirates on a "black freighter"(hence the title).The pirates then go to the hometown of the man, to slaughter the people there, which include this wife and child.So, he follows them, intent on saving his family and taking revenge on the pirates.The animation is the best part of this short. It's simply excellent.The story is kind of hard to follow, and I personally never saw how it fit in with "Watchmen".It's decent enough, if you're a fan of 300, Watchmen or any violent animation, then this is worth a look.Apparently, this short will be inter-sped into the "Watchmen" film for the Ultimate Edition DVD.
nice little slice of alan moore
posted on 05 Apr 2009So I haven't seen The Watchmen yet, nor have I read the graphic novel.This was a very cool, well done little piece of psychological horror.In the vein of Hitchcock or The Twilight Zone with copious amounts of blood and gore, and with pirates. There is a very nice sense of tension throughout the story and there are more than a few shocking moments.Even though animated, I still found myself unintentionally cringing at some points. The animation is done well, I'm glad its not done in an Anime style. It reminded me a little of Ralph Bakshi which was nice and the twist or climax at the end left me satisfied.I will definitely be recommending this to everyone I know. Especially the ones who enjoyed The Watchmen. I was planning on seeing it soon and this has certainly added to my anticipation. But whether Watchmen turns out to be awesome or not, this is a great piece of animation and absolutely stands on its own. Even if you didn't like the movie this was extracted from you should check this out.
A chilling, competent and compelling adaptation of Alan Moore's work.
posted on 24 Jul 2009As you will know from reading my earlier review of Watchmen, I wasn't overly impressed. Snyder's attempts to shoehorn as much of the book into his film resulted in a confusing mess. At least he was smart enough not to try and fit 'Tales of the Black Freighter' in too. Instead, it was made into this 25 minute animation by Mike Smith and Daniel DelPurgatorio.The story originated as a comic book within a comic book, read by a kid who uses the same news stand as Rorschach. It follows a Mariner (Gerard Butler) whose ship is blown to smithereens and whose crew are all slain by Pirates from the dreaded Black freighter. He makes his way to a nearby deserted island, just in time to watch the bloated corpses of his crew wash up on shore.Whilst there he figures that the pirates are most likely pillaging his home town and his family are in danger. He decides to build a raft from trees and a sail that he finds his friend wrapped in. He grimly realises the swollen, gas filled bodies lying on the beach will provide him with the perfect ballast to keep him afloat. And be begins tying them to his raft.Sailing on his grotesque vessel, he heads for home. Eating any seabirds who fly down close enough trying to peck at the eyeballs of his building material. He perilously drinks handfuls of sea water, sending him further and further into delusion. His dead friend counsels him from beyond the grave, telling him it's too late to save his family back home and he should go back. But like a certain character in the main book, the Mariner is intent on his mission. It's no mistake that the bloodied sails on his raft resemble an ink-blot.After surviving a shark attack and washing up on familiar shores, he has convinced himself that the Pirates have been and plundered his town. So convinced that he murders innocents he suspects have betrayed his people to the pirates. He stalks into his own house, believing that pirates lie in the beds of his wife and daughters and prepares to kill them.Unlike the main book, Black Freighter is complex in its simplicity. You have the simple story of a man heading home to save his loved ones, who, through self-delusion, becomes the very monster that threatens them. The complexities lie in the confused and tortured Mariner. His soul is polluted and corrupted by the vengeance in his heart, so much so, that he becomes worse than his enemy.Gerard Butler, offered the role because Zack Snyder couldn't find him a part in Watchmen, fits perfect. His nuanced Scottish growl starts off simpering and self-sympathetic before ending with the lunatic howls of a madman. There is no better voice.The animation is similar in style to Fist of the North Star, the 1986 movie, with dark shadows and a lot of high contrast visuals. The sea is as black as ink and the sun crimson on the horizon. It feels very old school compared to modern anime's like Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell.In 25 minutes this film achieves what Watchmen couldn't do in nearly three hours. A chilling, competent and compelling adaptation of Alan Moore's work.Verdict 8/10 Better than the film it accompanies.