Mark Noble

Disappointing and quite different from the book. Probably best to watch this if you’ve never read the original. Also, the “science advisor” for this production did not pay attention to the characters’ comments. They were told they had to make the journey without “interstellar drive,” yet the 50,000 light year journey “will only take 54 months.” Pretty quick to travel that enormous distance without interstellar drive. A lot of the dialogue was poorly enunciated, even allowing for the many actors who were from the UK, making it difficult for me to understand. I give this a tepid recommendation at best.

Tom Hanks gave a good performance but the movie suffered from historical inaccuracies. At the start, it is stated that "Greyhound" was a "Fletcher" class destroyer. That class was used in the Pacific theater against Japan, not for routine convoy escort duty in the Atlantic. The German U-boats never ran out of torpedoes (they only carried 12 and mainly used them against the merchant ships) but the destroyers quickly ran low on depth charges. Also omitted was the fact that Fletcher and similar destroyers all carried a load of torpedoes as part of their ordinance. Yet we only see depth charges and guns firing. The idea that a U-boat would try to fire its 3.5 inch (8.8 cm) or 4.1 inch (10.5 cm) gun at a destroyer is ludicrous. US destroyers were armed with up to five, 5" guns plus a half-dozen or more 20 and 40 mm cannon as well as a bevy of machine guns. So a sub would not engage in a surface gun battle with a destroyer except if the sub's hull were breached and it could not submerge and only as an act of desperation (not the situation in the movie); the primary weapons of a sub are its torpedoes and subs would only use their deck guns against unarmed small merchant ships to save torpedoes. Despite the historic inaccuracies, I enjoyed the movie. The acting was good and the effects made one feel one was really at sea in a rough north Atlantic storm. A solid 3/5 stars and I recommend the movie to all who like this genre.