Some things I liked some I did not.

disgusting, overrated, pointless

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Anthony Quinn makes a much better Santiago than Spencer Tracey did, and director Jud Taylor and screenwriter Roger Hirson manage to make the right decisions regarding editing and plot, distilling Hemingway's simple, powerful, story to its fundamental human elements and adding elements of characterization which a more 'faithful' adaptation would have missed.It is remarkable that this film was made for television broadcast. It sports a cast and a pedigree well above the typical TV movie of its time, and - with a little more budget - would have made a fine big screen film. Santiago is an old man in a small fishing village in Cuba. Some of the local men feel that his failure to catch fish for the last 84 days has brought a curse on the village, and they long for his retirement. Others, including Santiago himself, simply believe that he has had a run of bad luck. Inspired by a young man who worships the kindly old fishermen, a respectful innkeeper, and indirectly, by the sympathetic sentiments of a foreign writer (Tom Pruitt played by Gary Cole) staying in the village, Santiago begins what may be his final voyage out to sea, in search of a big catch. Hemingway's story is one of many where the great writer expounds on his unusually sensitive and intelligent views of masculine ideals. In this adaptation of The Old Man and the Sea, however, Hemingway's tendency to diminish female roles in order to make room for men - thankfully - does not come through. Instead, the production team decided to add relationships (such as Santiago and his daughter) which nicely embellish the development of the central character as a passionately independent man who nonetheless loves those around him despite their refusal to understand him (except for his protégé, the young fisherman). The film also nicely touches on issues of aging.Tom Pruitt (Gary Cole), is - basically - Hemingway. And this character interprets the old man for us, but subtly, and only as he learns from the example the old man sets - never as an omniscient god-figure who creates and sees clearly. As such, Pruitt and his lover (Patricia Clarkson) reveal something intimate about Hemingway's famously tortured relationship with his craft. The story is shot and edited exactly as it should have been, and the feeling of Hemingway's story is much better developed than in the previous Oscar winning Spencer Tracey version. This is true despite the fact that Taylor's film strays much further from the original Hemingway story. The film depicts a man struggling with the sea, a crisis of self-confidence, and accusations of uselessness - but who never once loses sight of his prospects and inner strength. The dignity of the character is very admirable, and Anthony Quinn's performance is mesmerizing. Quinn pours his soul into Santiago - and it is clear that the great actor understood his character perfectly. Excellent support is provided by Patricia Clarkson and a very good but largely unknown Latin American cast) Unfortunately, Gary Cole's portrayal of Hemingway is not one of his better efforts and some of his scenes are unconvincing.Recommended for Hemingway and Quinn fans - but not for purists. Recommended for patient fans of human drama. Not recommended for people with limited attention spans.

Warning: Movie Details revealed:I'm a freshmen student who watched the movie Old Man And The Sea I think the movie's graphics weren't all that good. The plot was good, but the graphics were horrible. Every thing looked fake, especially the marlin. Other than that the movie was good. They didn't make many changes, and the changes they did make, made the movie better not worse. The actors did their job pretty good and they were convincing. For example when the old man was out to sea looking for the fish and talking to himself he was saying things with a lot of feeling. Or the part when he was saying that he had to kill the fish even though he loved it and respected it. Then when he was asking himself if it was right to kill the fish he put enough real emotion in there to convince the person watching that he was actually there. The actors looked like I imagined they would look. Except one, the daughter Angela. They stuck to the book and how they said stuff and what they said so it was actually a good book in terms of the plot, if you can get over the fake graphics than it's a fairly good movie.

Warning some spoilers below!!!!I've read the book, The Old Man and the Sea, and the movie wasn't exactly the same as the book, but the movie was very similar. The old man and the Sea is a classic book and many of you may have read it. The movie did cover almost every detail the book had, but it added its own touch to the movie. For one, the old man didn't have a daughter in the story or was the family even mentioned. The actress who played the daughter wasn't a very good actress. She didn't even add anything to the outline of the story. There was no point in her being in the movie at all. The old man and the sea movie wasn't a movie I would go out to see in the movie theater. It was port of an assignment in my reading class, but overall it was okay. The actor who played the old man did an excellent job in portraying the man and his adventures. To me, the story was kind of better in the sense of length because it really stressed the situations. The movie made it seem as if everything happened in a matter of 2 days, but the book made it seem as if the adventures lasted maybe a week. The part where he's catching the marlin tool like 5 minutes and the book said that it took days for him to catch the fish. The book and the story were good and if you like educational movies; this is the one for you. But, if you are like me don't watch it unless you have to. I rate the movie a 7 out of 10 because it was okay, but it wasn't all that.

My thought: unbelievably boring I felt that this movie was no good as the book itself, I think it had poor graphics. It had the worst actors. The difference between the book and the movie is that the book paints a picture in your head and the movie barely even makes you think about the book. The maker of the movie cut some parts out and changed how the book was written. They took out the part when him when he was dreaming of lions in Africa, to him when he was younger and when he got married to his wife. The movie didn't help me at all to understand the story better. They put Ernest Hemingway in as an actor in the movie. They added his daughter in the movie. But in real life Anthony Quinn played the old man in the movie with his son and daughter as his daughter and as him when he was younger. The marlin barely even looks real. It's bigger than that.