“The adventures of Sir James Brooke, who defied the British Empire to rule a jungle kingdom in 1840s Borneo, embarked on a lifelong crusade to end piracy, slavery and head-hunting, and inspired LORD JIM and THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING”
SCORE: 3/10
tl/dr: This movie is utter trash & almost 2 hours of my life I will never get back. I guess that’s what I get for allowing my Spanish father-in-law to pick what the whole family was watching.
The Edge of the World is based on the apparently true story of a strapping British chap named Sir James Brooke, played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. The entire story revolves around a place called Borneo, which hand up, I couldn’t point to on a map before watching this film. First and foremost – this place is allegedly the 3RD LARGEST ISLAND IN THE WORLD. Seeing that of course got me thinking – what even is an island – wouldn’t Australia be bigger? Turns out they just don’t count “continental landmasses” in island power rankings. Odd. Anyway – perhaps why I’ve never heard of this is because there are 3 present day countries that occupy pieces of this island – Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. I mean look at this screenshot from google maps below, place doesn’t even have a name:
Anyway, I digress. On the surface, this has all the makings of what could and should be a decent watch. We have an (allegedly) great lead actor in JRM, Merry Brandybuck in a supporting role, British empire, hot local woman, “new world” swashbuckling land grabbing brits, etc. But like nothing happens worth any substance or that gets me to care about anything. By the time everything heats up in the 3rd act, I was half asleep and as stated in the previous sentence – I didn’t even care about the characters.
Spoilers:
- What was the deal with that super effeminate tsar? Seemed bizarre to me that this guy would be walking around in the mid 1840s and be that…gay
- The whole “rebel encampment” and “siege” plot….what was that? The fortress was like a fence and the lads had literal cannons. How was this not solved in the course of an afternoon….
- The steamboat admiral drops a HARD, hard R at the dinner table. Came out of nowhere, have your guard up for that if you do decide to watch this shit film