Summary:
Review of the movie Master and Commander.
The name of the movie I'm going to review is Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. The movie is rated PG-13 - for intense battle sequences, related images and brief language and 2 hrs. 20 minutes long. One of the less know Director people know is Peter Weir and is written by John Collee & Larry Ferguson. There are a lot of producers in this movie including Samuel Goldwyn JR, Duncan Henderson, and executive producer Alan B. Curtiss.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of The World is one of the best sea adventure movies of the year. The great Peter Weir directed the movie. The movie involved many great names like Russell Crowe played as an English sea captain named Captain Jack Aubrey who searches the oceans for the French enemy ship who is taking down other English ships out in sea during the napoleon war. There are many great co-actors in this movie you'll enjoy including 18 year old Max Benitz who does some heroic actions that save the lives of him crew mates who is a officer. Paul Bettany is the co-star with Russell Crowe who is DR. Maturin who guides the captain. James D'Arcy is named Lt. Tom Pullings who wants others respect since he's Lieutenant. Billy Boyd plays coxswain Barrett Bonden as one of the crewmembers. Richard McCabe plays Mr. Higgins, assistant surgeon to Dr. Maturin. Max Pirkis plays the midshipman Lord Blakeney who looses his arm and does some great acting as a kid.
The story starts in April 1805, during a conflict between England and France, and then ruled by Napoleon. Captain Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) has been ordered to deal severely with the Acheron (French ship), which, as a privateer, has been striking, at British shipping. But Aubrey and his crew are surprised when the Acheron, a much larger and better-armed ship, attacks them. The battle takes place in thick fog, and Aubrey's crew barely gets away. They set out in pursuit of the other ship, t sailing up the Pacific coast of South America, heading for the Galapagos. The film involves many encounters between the two chips but the French Ship doing much more damage to the ship and at one point there was a leak in the ship. The first raid of attack is when the story just begins. Most of the crewmembers are just waking up, a boy notices something in the fog, he calls Captain Jack over and he notices a blink for a second. Then out of nowhere he sees a flash and tells everyone to go down. Many people on his ship died because they where taken unexpected. The film also has some scenes in the remote shore of the Galapagos Islands when one of the smartest, important officer named Dr. Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany) on the ship gets shot accidentally when some crew member shot at a seagull and it accidentally hit the stomach of Dr. Stephen. They had to stop at the Galapagos so they can get the bullet out because they can't take out the bullet without the boat shaking. They crew was there recently but never landed because the Captain Jack decided to go after the enemy French ship he thought that was going west so they can block the ship. The scene in taking out the bullet was very gruesome. It showed himself telling one of his colleagues where to pull the bullet. Since I'm talking about some of the gruesome parts I might as well talk about the part where a boy named Blakeney played, as Max Pirkis is the youngest boy on the ship who becomes an officer has only one arm. When the first encounter between the two ships happened Blakeney (Max Pirkis) broke his arm when a cannon almost hit him then the doctors decided to amputate his arm. It didn't show his arm actually being amputated but you can see his face squirm on the big screen. Which I didn't enjoy and I noticed around me people moving, and covering their eyes. That is one of the problems with this movie. Going back to the Galapagos, after the surgery is a success the captain dedcides to let everyone stay for a week since last time Dr. Stephen wanted to stay in search for different animals. The crew enjoys the fresh air and a bath. Dr. Maturin and the young boy Blakeney spend there time hunting exotic lizards, and animals. Back then they where just seeing new things so everything they saw like a turtle they where trying to act surprised which they did a very good job at it. You also get to know a lot of the crew members, though it's not always easy to figure out their names. Aubrey's lieutenants are a lot of men, and the midshipmen mostly boys, but one of them, Blakeney like I said above shows his intelligence and his courage in battle, despite losing an arm. There are lots of blood scenes but theses kinds of scenes are not as bad. I got used to the blood and was at the edge of my seat when there where more blood scenes because the plot was unfolding. The action is great when Captain Jack pretends to be a French ship by putting their flag up in an attempt to attack the ship by getting in close range. There's only one problem wrong about the storyline. Too much people getting sick and you see things you'll have dreams when you sleep. Much of the movie involved great scenes with Russell Crowe like the swordfights with many of French sailors, his quick actions on what to do in tense moments, and last by not least the way he tricked the French ship by letting them get closer. Because the story is limited just to the encounters between the two warships the movie opens and closes with their two major sea battles some people who will see this movie will be confused on what is happening. Except for a brief meeting between the British ship and some natives from Brazil, who don't even come aboard, there are no women in the film. The ending of this movie is one where you don't want to be in the washroom and it has a funny twist to it.
Russell Crowe was the perfect part for captain in this movie. Russell Crowe is pretty astonishing when he's given a challenging role. He did not dominate the movie but did the opposite. He let many others take the spotlight like Paul Bettany. One of the scenes I was surprised by Crowe was when in the evenings; he and his friend Dr. Maturin meet in the Captain's quarters. Maturin plays the cello and Aubrey the violin. Their music slightly ticks off the crew because they want something they can dance to. In almost all his films he has the main role and is pretty good in them, like in his recent film A Beautiful Mind (2002) was great and one of my favorite that almost everyone likes is his role in Gladiator (2001). He won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Maximus, the Roman general-turned-gladiator and I wouldn't be surprised of Russell Crowe wan the award again for Master and Commander because he did a great acting job. Peter Weir did a great job in directing this movie. I personally say he could've done much better if he gave Russell Crowe much more action scenes not just a 15-minute scene slicing everyone he sees with his blade on the enemy ship. The way Peter captured the storms was stunning. It felt like you were there and the rain was pouring on you. One of the negative things he's done with this movie is the ending. I'm not going to say much about it but you'll see what I mean when you watch this movie. Lee Smith editor of this movie is an award winning film
Editor, who helped out a lot in this movie. The cinematography took a lot of work and a lot of cameras since it was on sea, which was real, not some pond they made in a couple days like Pirates of the Caribbean.
This movie was a lot like Gladiator in many ways. A lot of action in both movies, Russell Crowe was excellent in both films, lots of fighting scenes, and they both have bad guys, which every movie pretty much does. Cesar in Gladiator and the French Captain in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. The films also has some differences as well. Gladiator all desert style of film and Master and Commander has the complete opposite a water style. This movie has more talking then Gladiator and Gladiator in my mind have way more action scenes then Master and Commander: The Far Side of The World. Many people say there's a rivalry between Master and Commander and Pirates of the Caribbean. The big difference between these movies are that the seas in Master and Commander was really on the Atlantic ocean and the Caribbean while Pirates of The Caribbean is in some huge area filled in with water with special effects. So if you liked the Roman style of Gladiator and you found Pirates of the Caribbean okay you will love the sea style of Master and Commander.
The Movie was pretty long for a sea battle and it needed less talking more doing. The movie was probably one of the best movies in a long time based in a sea vessel. In this movie you don't want to be caught not paying attention because in the start I missed the objective of why the ships are going after each other because there was some writing on the screen and for the first half hour I didn't know what was going on. So you don't want to be grabbing popcorn and looking away. If your a kid under ten I wouldn't want to be at this movie or at least alone and be ready for the gruesome parts. This is definitely a movie for mature audiences, but I think teenagers will enjoy watching a story about battles and some people might learn something about history and napoleon but it doesn't talk about it that much. The rating for this movie (PG-13) is mainly due to the battle scenes and injuries that take place. Overall if you are into sea battles, Russell Crowe and no girls in movies this is your kind of movie.
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