Reviews of "Admiral: Command & Conquer" a.k.a. Michiel De Ruyter
I have been a huge fan of sailing ships, particularly fighting sail, since I was a small boy. I had read all of C.S. Forester's "Hornblower" novels before I was halfway through my teens and now own C Northcote Parkinson's painting of Hornblower which he did for his own book on the fictional British Admiral.
I have also been an avid reader of Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey and Maturin novels, Dudley Pope's Ramage stories, Showell Styles' novelised factual stories about real historical figures such as Admirals Hawke and Duncan and Lieutenant Fitton, the Bolitho books which Douglas Reeman published as Alexander Kent, and more recently Sean Thomas Russell's "Charles Hayden" series. That is far from being a complete list.
So this morning, the film "Admiral: Command and Conquer" having just been released on DVD in the UK, I instantly spotted it on walking past the film rack at Morisons and could not resist picking it up. Here is the trailer for the film.
It was immediately obvious from the cover that the Admiral of the title was in fact a Dutch admiral, which meant he almost certainly had to be either Tromp or De Ruyter, and that the British are the bad guys. This did not stop me from buying it, but one or two glaring liberties with history on the packaging of the DVD case did,
So I decided to do a bit of quick research first. Having for reasons of convenience saved my notes on the film as a blog post which I had not originally intended to publish, it occurred to me that there might just be other people reading my blog who would be interested to know whether the film is any good. So here is what I discovered.
"Admiral: Command and Conquer" turns out to be the title of the British release of the Dutch film "Michiel de Ruyter." It covers de Ruyters' career both in creating a more modern Dutch navy and leading it in action from the Battle of Scheveningen in 1653 to his last battle in 1676, although the casual viewer who was unaware of this history might imagine that the 23 years covered by the film lasted for a much shorter time period.
I'd assumed from the DVD cover, which has the superb actor Charles Dance in the most prominent position, that he was playing De Ruyter, or failing that a major role, and you might easily get the impression from the promotional material that Rutger Hauer as Martin Tromp would have a big part.
Wrong on both counts. I gather Charles Dance has a relatively small part as a villainous Charles II of England and Scotland, and Hauer's character Tromp dies before the opening credits.
Can't blame the Dutch film makers for depicting Charles II as the bad guy, in spite of the fact that he was the nearest thing to a good king of Scotland or England the entire House of Stewart produced in its' entire disastrous history (and one of only two kings from that dynasty who managed to hold on to power until he died of entirely natural causes, the other being his grandfather, the "Wisest Fool in Christendom," James the Sixth and First.) From the Dutch perspective, he was indeed the villain.
I have managed to find two reviews of this film, one by British historian and author J.D. Davies at
http://jddavies.com/2015/08/05/admiral-compress-and-conflate/
It begins as follows:
The alarm bells rang at the sight of the DVD case, which claimed that it was about the ‘Greatest Battle Ever’.
Now, I’ve been working on the Anglo-Dutch wars for over 30 years. I very nearly wrote a full-length academic book about the Battle of the Texel on 11 August 1673, which forms the climax of the film, and might still return to it one day.
But not even in my wildest fantasies, even after consuming (say) a second small glass of shandy at the local, would I ever dream of calling any of the naval battles of that period ‘the greatest battle ever’.
And then there was the opening line of the prologue text: ‘The Seventeenth Century: the Netherlands is the only republic in the world’. Luckily, I’d ensured beforehand that all heavy objects that could conceivably be lobbed at the TV screen had been placed well out of reach."
(Other republics at the time in Europe alone included Switzerland, Venice, and Genoa.)
J.D. Davies's blog had previously carried a guest review of this film by eminent Dutch naval historian Gijs Rommelse, who saw it in the cinema in the Netherlands, and whose views on the film are at
http://jddavies.com/2015/05/11/the-film-and-the-facts-about-the-movie-michiel-de-ruyter/
Having quoted some of the problems the reviewers found, it is only fair to also point out that both largely praised the spectacular battle scenes (except that the British ships fly the Union flag in the wrong place for 17th century warships, as an Ensign instead of a Jack) and many other aspects of the film. So I will be buying it. If you are interested in naval history I suggest you follow the links above and read the reviews for yourself.
I have also been an avid reader of Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey and Maturin novels, Dudley Pope's Ramage stories, Showell Styles' novelised factual stories about real historical figures such as Admirals Hawke and Duncan and Lieutenant Fitton, the Bolitho books which Douglas Reeman published as Alexander Kent, and more recently Sean Thomas Russell's "Charles Hayden" series. That is far from being a complete list.
So this morning, the film "Admiral: Command and Conquer" having just been released on DVD in the UK, I instantly spotted it on walking past the film rack at Morisons and could not resist picking it up. Here is the trailer for the film.
It was immediately obvious from the cover that the Admiral of the title was in fact a Dutch admiral, which meant he almost certainly had to be either Tromp or De Ruyter, and that the British are the bad guys. This did not stop me from buying it, but one or two glaring liberties with history on the packaging of the DVD case did,
So I decided to do a bit of quick research first. Having for reasons of convenience saved my notes on the film as a blog post which I had not originally intended to publish, it occurred to me that there might just be other people reading my blog who would be interested to know whether the film is any good. So here is what I discovered.
"Admiral: Command and Conquer" turns out to be the title of the British release of the Dutch film "Michiel de Ruyter." It covers de Ruyters' career both in creating a more modern Dutch navy and leading it in action from the Battle of Scheveningen in 1653 to his last battle in 1676, although the casual viewer who was unaware of this history might imagine that the 23 years covered by the film lasted for a much shorter time period.
I'd assumed from the DVD cover, which has the superb actor Charles Dance in the most prominent position, that he was playing De Ruyter, or failing that a major role, and you might easily get the impression from the promotional material that Rutger Hauer as Martin Tromp would have a big part.
Wrong on both counts. I gather Charles Dance has a relatively small part as a villainous Charles II of England and Scotland, and Hauer's character Tromp dies before the opening credits.
Can't blame the Dutch film makers for depicting Charles II as the bad guy, in spite of the fact that he was the nearest thing to a good king of Scotland or England the entire House of Stewart produced in its' entire disastrous history (and one of only two kings from that dynasty who managed to hold on to power until he died of entirely natural causes, the other being his grandfather, the "Wisest Fool in Christendom," James the Sixth and First.) From the Dutch perspective, he was indeed the villain.
I have managed to find two reviews of this film, one by British historian and author J.D. Davies at
http://jddavies.com/2015/08/05/admiral-compress-and-conflate/
It begins as follows:
The alarm bells rang at the sight of the DVD case, which claimed that it was about the ‘Greatest Battle Ever’.
Now, I’ve been working on the Anglo-Dutch wars for over 30 years. I very nearly wrote a full-length academic book about the Battle of the Texel on 11 August 1673, which forms the climax of the film, and might still return to it one day.
But not even in my wildest fantasies, even after consuming (say) a second small glass of shandy at the local, would I ever dream of calling any of the naval battles of that period ‘the greatest battle ever’.
And then there was the opening line of the prologue text: ‘The Seventeenth Century: the Netherlands is the only republic in the world’. Luckily, I’d ensured beforehand that all heavy objects that could conceivably be lobbed at the TV screen had been placed well out of reach."
(Other republics at the time in Europe alone included Switzerland, Venice, and Genoa.)
J.D. Davies's blog had previously carried a guest review of this film by eminent Dutch naval historian Gijs Rommelse, who saw it in the cinema in the Netherlands, and whose views on the film are at
http://jddavies.com/2015/05/11/the-film-and-the-facts-about-the-movie-michiel-de-ruyter/
Having quoted some of the problems the reviewers found, it is only fair to also point out that both largely praised the spectacular battle scenes (except that the British ships fly the Union flag in the wrong place for 17th century warships, as an Ensign instead of a Jack) and many other aspects of the film. So I will be buying it. If you are interested in naval history I suggest you follow the links above and read the reviews for yourself.
Comments
The ship I did sail has now been decommissioned and replaced with a New One but still, ner ner, i did that. :)