Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

So much average

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Lack of handling and to much talking in the movie. Looks like an cheap movie in action.

Inspired by a novel, this film tells of the adventure of the frigate "HMS Surprise" and its captain, Jack Aubrey, in the South Seas, in pursuit of a powerful French warship during the Napoleonic Wars. To understand the film, however, its necessary to forget the book, set in a different conflict between British and Americans. The creative freedom of cinema has these things. The best of the film, however, is not the action or war scenes, but the way it accurately portrays the "modus vivendi" of a navy crew during this time. The historical portrait made is absolutely strict and this is something that a historian, like me, knows how to value and thank. Superstitions, war tactics, uniforms, hygiene and eating habits, relationship between military hierarchies, scientific research... all have been portrayed in a trustworthy way.Russel Crowe is the main actor and manages to perfectly embody the spirit of stubbornness and determination of an old sea lion. Beside him, the detailed and meticulous spirit of the naval surgeon Dr. Maturin is personified by Paul Bettany in a grandiose way, especially when both are together on the scene. There are other good actors, I especially liked a young man who plays a boy who, at the beginning of the film, loses an arm in combat (I didn't memorize actor's name but he did a great job). Another detail that delighted me was the soundtrack and the use of music during the film. Cinematography is excellent, particularly in combat and storm scenes. The biggest problem of the movie is it's nearly three-hour length. That will discourage some people, although this has not happened to me.

Despite the unwieldy title, this film is an unexpected pleasure – an actor's film, which is a rare thing nowadays in Hollywood. It's certainly not an action film – there are only two major sequences and they bookend the movie – but instead it focuses on characters as they develop through action and reaction. As such it's a surprisingly mature piece of work, featuring some excellent performances from the likes in particular of Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany, playing the ship's captain and doctor respectively. There's no showiness here, just strong, subtle work, and it's hard to choose who gives the best performance between the two of them because they're both great.This is an adaptation of a novel by Patrick O'Brian, which I haven't read as yet, although I believe it's a loose version of the story. Whatever the origins, it looks great, with often breathtaking shots of scenery – the Galapagos Islands, for instance. The ships are models for the most part, yet it's impossible to tell this, as the effects are very good indeed. I really liked the strong undercurrent of humour running through the film – such as the "lesser of two weevils" joke – and the surprisingly touching moments of humanity, like the boy who loses an arm and yet goes on to become a hero.What happens on screen might be familiar – there's the usual catalogue of ship-bound perils like droughts, deserted islands, wrecks, storms, cannon battles and a particularly well-handled "Jonah" – but this is about a hundred times better than PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN which came out around the same time. It's no surprise that the latter production, a bloated Disney cartoon, was the more successful of the two and the one that went on to spawn sequels...

I laughed my socks off at some of the negative reviews of this film but I can understand why a fan of say Pirates Of The Caribbean might find this a bit dull in comparison.This is the Royal Navy old chap, stiff upper lip with understated British emotion, other than when Frenchie is off the port bow.I think I really enjoyed this film purely for the fact that so few movies are made these days about the British Empire and the Royal Navy. Those that have included them usually show them in a negative light as either the baddies or incompetent such as in The Patriot. This movie returns to the tradition of movies like Zulu, showing the British serviceman as a gallant fellow fighting for what they believe in. Okay it's not perfect, the editing is too choppy for me, but as an Englishman and with so few movies made of this genre these days its hard not to embrace it.For those who don't understand the historical relevance, there's clearly a tie in with Paul Bettany's character and the trip made by Darwin on the Beagle to the Galapagos islands to fine tune his book the Origins Of Species. Without that information the viewer might wonder why the obsession with visiting those islands in the movie.A sequel would have been wonderful but alas probably won't happen. A modern version of Sink The Bismark would be wonderful but alas, once again, probably won't happen. Shame. I suppose we'll just have to make do with movies about fantasy pirates and over the top military escapades with the US Navy such as Battleship.