REMAKING OLD CLASSICS has always been a popular--yet usually fruitless--pastime for filmmakers, as any views of last summer's pathetic reworking of the 1948 French classic Breathless can attest to Even superstud Richard Gere couldn't save Breathless flaccid plot. And in The Bounty, even fine performances by Australian hearthrob Mel Gibson and the superb English character actor Anthony Hopkins cannot sustain this reinterpretation of the well-known Mutiny on the Bounty saga. The Bounty reflects a prevalent new twist in the remake trend, seen earlier this spring in Greystoke, the latest turn to the Tatzan story. Both films purport to be more than mere copies of old films by adding new insights to the traditional story-lines they are based on. But as in Greystoke, and now in The Bounty, the movie-makers grandiose visions of creating new epics fall flat, because in reworking old stories, they have lost the originals' sense of excitement and suspense.

In trying to transcend the myth of Tarzan, Greystoke becomes more of a three-dimensional National Geographic version of life in the jungle. There are spectacular scenes of the jungle and of country estate life in Britain, to be sure, but there is something essential missing. The characters paradoxically become uninteresting as the actors painfully try to show that they are real people and not stereotypic replicas of the "me-Tarzan, you Jane" genre T. V. e-runs of the old Johnny Weismuller greats still beat Gresstoke--despite the scenery--because they feature a kind of spirit the remake Tacks.

The same goes for The Bounty. The traditional plot of the mutiny that occurred on board the H.M.S, Bounty some 300 years ago has always come from the well-known novel Mutiny on the Bounty--which has twice been enacted on film already. In both film versions, the tyrannical Captain Bligh provokes a rebellion aboard his ship, led by the romantic Fletcher Christian, s the ship is returning home after spending some months in Tahiti on a mission for King George I.

The production staff of The Bounty took obvious pains at making sure that their movie would not merely be a remake of standard Mutiny on the Bounty fare. Using new historical sources for the true story behind the mutiny, the filmmakers tried to flesh out the relationship between Bligh and Christian and make it clear that their motivations and personalities are much more complex than the cardboard characters in the originals. The movie also focuses much more than the originals on the details of the Bounty's journey and stay in Tahiti. The cinematography spends an inordinate amount of time presenting panoramic views of the ship at sea, of Tahiti, and of the grueling life of the crew members on board the ship.

Instead of supplementing the character development, the magnificent scenery becomes the commanding force in the movie. Snippets of the plot are woven in between scenes of island life or storm scenes at sea, and as a result the story plays second-fiddle to the settings. We never truly get to know the characters, who seem tremendously inactive but yet paradoxically provoke tremendous dramatic actions. Mel Gibson's Fletcher Christian comes across as a rather weak-willed character, who leads the mutiny because he wants to return to his Tahitian princess. He is given little opportunity to do anything except stand around looking gorgeous; we are never given a chance to see what motivates his actions. Why, for instance, does his passion for the princess turn into a romance de coeur so strong that he is willing to risk his life and those of the men on board the Bounty to return to Tahiti? All we see are a few semi-nude water love scenes or views of his getting tatooed--nothing substantial enough to explain his deep depression upon leaving Tahiti.

ANTHONY HOPKINS, however, does succeed in making Captain Bligh into a complex figure, whose binding ambition to sail around the world and fierce love of order somehow is not strong enough to overpower his deep-seated insecurity and desire to be accepted by his men. By showing, with amazing intensity. Blight's torturous, sleepless nights while in Tahiti, Hopkins reveals his character's inner turmoil. Bligh realizes that by allowing his men to frolic with the native women he is losing his control on them, yet if he forces them to stay on board the ship, their anger will take physical form. Hopkins makes Blight's difficult position palpable and his confused actions almost understandable.

In The Bounty, the climax supposedly occurs with the actual mutiny, yet when the mutiny does occur towards the end of the film, it seems to come with a sense of fizzling. Bligh is too pathetic to have deserved the disruption of his ship, and Christian too wimpy to lead such an adventure. The Bounty turns out to be a very frustrating movie; it drags out the plot so much that when a crucial action does occur, we are so numbed by the close-ups of the isolated characters or the grand views of the ocean that the drama loses all sense of mystery and tension.

Told in flashbacks by Bligh at his naval trial for losing the ship, the movie switches back and forth between the present and the story of Bligh's tragic removal from his command. The flashback technique makes the movie even more choppy, we aren't sure if the Flashbacks are from Bligh's perspective or an objective portrayal of the events. The film becomes a potpourri of disjointed images, which sacrifices character development for landscaping.

Like Greystoke attempts at awakening new interest in Tarzan, The Bounty fails in its attempt to give a new perspective to the age-old tale of the mutiny on the Bounty. What results, unfortunately, is a disjointed series of scenes that interest us only for their beauty and spectacular cinematography while the plot gets lost along with the characters. But an epic needs a substantial drama to make it an epic, and by reducing the importance of the plot in The Bounty, the movie becomes a two-hour long montage of pretty pictures that would look better on postcards.