Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

December 10, 2004

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 140 min Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is based upon the novels of Patrick O’Brian. I’ve never read any of them, so I only mention it for the benefit of those who might have. I don’t know about the books, but I can say this story makes for a pretty good movie.

The year is 1805, France and Britain are at war. Captain “Lucky” Jack Aubrey is in command of the Man of War HMS Surprise. He is pursuing a much larger and faster French privateer ship called Archeron which is making a run for the south Pacific by way of Cape Horn. The Captain is played by Russell Crowe. And much of the drama of the film revolves around the relationship between Aubrey and the ship’s doctor played by his old college roommate from A Beautiful Mind, Paul Bettany. Both turn in excellent performances.

This is a period piece set at sea. It contains some of the best sea going scenes ever filmed thanks to actually being filmed at sea and in the big Titanic tank in Baja. The movie is set almost exclusively aboard the HMS Surprise and as such does a wonderful job of giving us a feel for what life at sea might’ve been for the British Navy men of this period. And I would definitely classify this as drama because this movie is about the characters, life at sea and particularly the differences between the classic battling Captain and his “naturalist” ship’s doctor.

But dont worry, this isn’t just a foo foo artsy fartsy piece. The battle sequences are the best I’ve seen by a wide margin for sea battles of this time period. It’s up close, violent and bloody, and that’s before the swash buckling of actually trying to take a ship even begins.

We give Master and Commander 4 stars. Words like “master piece” have been thrown around and for a change we can’t really disagree. The other word thrown around though is “epic”. You know what that means. The movie is too long. If this movie were not so well made and acted, the time between battle sequences would be agonizing. As is, we tolerated it pretty well. Find yourself a theater with good comfortabe seats, take a leak before the movie starts, and kick back and enjoy this one on the big screen.

Posted by Billy Bob | Filed Under 4 Stars, Drama, Ian Mercer, James D'Arcy, John Desantis, PG-13, Paul Bettany, Russell Crowe, Theatrical