Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Just perfect...

I'll tell you why so serious

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Everyone enjoys taking a cheap shot at the Academy Awards, and this movie offers a great chance to do just that - Around the World in Eighty Days won Best Picture, while in the same year John Ford's The Searchers, one of the most iconic classics in the history of American cinema, didn't receive a single nomination.Around the World is three hours long, and feels like it. Every few minutes the movie stops to gawk at its exotic locations and smugly chuckle at its endless celebrity cameos ("Look, isn't it funny that the saloon pianist is Frank Sinatra?"). It has certainly aged badly. I remember enjoying it as a kid thirty years ago; rewatching it recently, I was surprised by how overlong it feels. I had a similar reaction to another on-the-road adventure/comedy of the same era, The Great Race, except the latter is propelled even today by Jack Lemmon's villainous glee as Professor Fate and by the sight of the adorable Natalie Wood in her lingerie. Around the World features also-adorable Shirley MacLaine - but, distractingly, she is unlikely cast as an Indian princess.Overall, though, this Jules Verne adaptation isn't a bad movie - a mildly entertaining travelogue with luscious vistas and a tone-perfect David Niven as a British gentleman so prim and fastidious that, if you tossed a couple of eggs in his luggage, two minutes later he would produce from it still immaculate clothes and a perfectly cooked omelet on a silver platter. In fact, Around the World is at its best when it focuses on Niven's Phileas Fogg dryly dealing with annoyances, obstacles and threats, and at its worst when it pauses to showcase the physical skills of co-star Cantinflas as Passepartout - so we have a dancing number, a bullfighting number, a circus number, and so on.The result is drawn-out; we complain that Peter Jackson added at least a whole hour of bloat in each Hobbit movie, but Hollywood was already doing that sixty years ago.6/10

Adaptation of Jules Verne's novel about a Victorian Englishman (David Niven) who bets that with the new steamships and railways he can do what the title says.What is most interesting about this film is that it is science fiction. Today (2015) it seems historical, but at the time the story was written it was quite a feat to circle the earth in 80 days. Now, it can be done in 80 hours (or less).The film has some down sides, notably the length (over three hours). This could probably be helped by cutting the intermission and the "Trip to the Moon" segment. There is also the strange casting of Peter Lorre as Japanese (though this is far from the first time).

This was something of a cult film of my childhood, and it's a very fascinating experience to see it again after +50 years. As a child it was only a great adventure experience, and the spell of the exciting travel thriller story made you wallow in the book for years. 50 years later you can better assess its qualities and faults. Of course, there are any amount of deviations from the book, although the main structure is all there, but some of these deviations make the best parts of the film, especially the first adventures with the balloon into Spain with José Greco even treating you with an almost full evening ballet performance, let alone the bullfight the morning after. Cantinflas is the major acting asset of the film, creating a thoroughly sympathetic minor factotum of many arts almost like a Latin Chaplin, but David Niven is convincing enough as Phileas Fogg, Shirley McLaine make a beautiful princess, and Robert Newton as the cockney detective couldn't be better. Still, the major highlights are the great feast scenes, the Spanish adventures, the San Francisco brawl, the Indian funeral, the Japanese circus and the train rides, – only the sea voyages are cut a bit short. Of course, they should be experienced on the wide screen they were made for, but even in a computer frame the adventure still brings out all the magic enhanced by a very well composed score with the unforgettable "balloon waltz" as the jewel in the crown. In brief, this great adventure of the 50s carrying on the moods from Jules Verne and George Méliès is well worth watching still today for the major entertainment it is, on perhaps the best travel story ever written.

Michael Todd's Around The World In Eighty Days is a generally disregarded Best Picture winner, considered a throwaway epic that's simply of its time, nothing more nothing less. It's neither considered one of their best or worst choices. And while that mild legacy is relatively accurate, it's actually an enduring entertaining experience. It's thanks to its spright whimsical tone that exudes the timeless spirit of adventure. Sure, its characters and cultures are caricaturesque and utterly romanticised, of which would be interesting to analyse those interpretations for film history studies despite the inherent inaccuracies, but it's not exactly supposed to be raw and authentic. Instead it's concerned with its grand scale, and it's a total marvel. With dozens of huge locations, thousands of extras and an anxious use of wide angle lenses, the proportions of which the story is told are gargantuan.While there's not much of a sense of time, it certainly results in a sense of distance. It's event cinema that's held its weight for near 60 years. Mexican star Cantinflas' Passepartout is the Chaplin-esque heart and soul of the film and elevates the whole project with his bravery, loyalty and dilemmas. Niven's stoic yet bold protagonist Fogg simply blends into the background, and is a mere vehicle for Passepartout, if not an overt one. The iconic score is the backbone of the film, setting the camp tone with an assortment of familiar anthems. Naturally, there's fundamental flaws with the story as it's bloated beyond comprehension and it's structure is inconsequentially episodic with its series of obstacles with little to no insight into the characters besides a brief flirtation with common loneliness. But above all, the film is a silly but endearing romp that doesn't take itself too seriously, lending it to being thoroughly accessible viewing.7/10