Mutiny thereon. You might presume that if someone were going to bother to make a third version of the famous and infamous events aboard H.M.S. Bounty, they must have thought of something to do with it that their predecessors hadn't thought of something akin to Brando's dandified interpretation of Fletcher Christian in the second version. Perhaps there is more of an effort made to let Lieutenant Bligh present his side of the story: the whole thing, even those parts of it that Bligh could have had no knowledge of, is related in flashbacks in front of a Naval review board. And Fletcher Christian, in the result, practically disappears as a character. But somehow it seems unlikely that Bligh's stiff (but perspiry) upper lip, his abstention from spirits, his sexual repression, and his spiritual torment over a lifestyle that differs but little from that of Southern California beaches will endear him to the contemporary movie audience particularly when Anthony Hopkins's tight-collared twitchiness is held up against Mel Gibson's unbuttoned and often shirtless sensuality. And there seems to be no shortcut around all the conspiratorial glances and cynical grimaces, nor around the "Land ho!" and "I bring you gifts" and naked giggling native girls (the greater proximity to Tahiti of the Australian director, Roger Donaldson, has resulted in no greater anthropological interest: a couple of frenzied production numbers and a single dreamy montage, nothing more), nor around the "From now on there is going to be discipline on this ship" and "There will be no more grog and no more shore leave," nor around the floggings and rumblings and "Are you with us?" and "You fools! You'll hang for this!" That two words of the former title have been lopped off does not indicate a general trend toward streamlining. (1984) — Duncan Shepherd