Around the World in 80 Days (DVD)

"We have reached a golden age - anything that can be invented, has been." Perhaps it's because such a statement is so easy to believe of our own time that there remains such appeal in the science of Victorian London, when man flying in the air was nothing but a flight of fancy, and electricity was a novelty, let alone the myriad contraptions we now take for granted (and which are useless as soon as there's a power cut). Yes, it's fun to look back to a day when circumnavigating the globe in three months would be a feat almost beyond fancy! Jules Verne's classic tale of inventor Phileas Fogg and his wager (not a 'bet', you see - he's a ...  Read the complete review

Jackie Chan is one of those actors you can either take or leave. Since he broke into the main stream he has appeared in a number of Comedy’s and the majority of them have been very successful. So having enjoyed most of his previous films, when I’d seen he had teamed up with Steve Coogan, one of my favourite comedians it seemed like a good combination. So the recent chance to see Around The World In 80 Days seemed like one I shouldn’t pass up. Of course I was still open-minded, regardless of the cast as it still had the potential to be awful. The film is based, very loosely, on a novel by the great Jules Verne, incredibly loosely I may add. Coogan takes the ...  Read the complete review

In 1872 an eccentric British inventor set out to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days to win a very generous £20,000 wager using a combination of rail and steamer travel. Whilst in 1873 when the original novel by author Jules Verne hit the bookshelves this would have been an incredibly exciting prospect with each developmental travel milestone its lost some of its wow factor and has been adapted to each new audience. A classic example of this is the hot air balloon which features prominently on the cover of every recent incarnation of the novel and its many spin off films, cartoon and TV series despite the fact that the hot air balloon didn't have its own heat source ...  Read the complete review

You used to be able to rely on Disney to turn out a quality film however this remake of a pretty good original was an absolute disaster with some awful cast choices and the shocking under utilisation of Steve Coogan who could have been mre prominent in the film. Based on the book by Jules Verne the story centres around a bet made by an intrepid explorer that in the year of 1872 he would be able to circumvent the globe in 80 days something Michael Palin used as the inspiration for his own globe trotting series of a similar name. In this film they added an extra twist with the theft of a jade Buddha and thus there is an extra dimension to the travels of Phleas ...  Read the complete review

Steve Coogan and Jackie Chan star in Around the World in 80 Days adapted from famous book which has same name and was written by French writer Jules Verne. The book was written in 1870's when the French were chopping heads off and the rest of the world was advancing to industrial age. Central characters in the film are Phileas Fogg (Coogan) and Passpartout (Chan). The film opens with a robber running away from police. I liked this scene. it was fast and the camera gave a wide shot of what was going on which was very pleasing. In anger Fogg wagers that he will circumnavigate the globe in 80 days. Impossible task, should he fail he will ...  Read the complete review