Who's up for Master and Commander?

Thanks Art (and Skip). Maybe I will go see this movie.

 

I was rather sketchy at first, but the trailers (as opposed to the teaser) have generated some interest on my part.

At the very least "Master and Commander" is now on my Amazon WishList. Maybe I'll catch the movie with my brother when he visits from Chicago for Thanksgiving...

 

I'm just back from seeing it. It's a solid 3 3/4 star movie - the best war film since Private Ryan, much better than Gladiator or Beautiful Mind, finest wooden ships & iron men movie ever, and best plain vanilla fun action/adventure movie in a very long time. A must see. Really good character development, great fight scenes, but pretty much lacking in serious themes.

 

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/MasterandCommanderTheFarSideoftheWorld-1127359/

right now, it has a 89% rating (89% of the reviews say go see it) so I take it it is a good movie. I will see it soon.

 

I saw it last night. A quality film, well worth the money to see it on the big screen.

 

Huge fan of the books, and I liked the film. It was a little dissapointing in some areas, Maturin and Aubrey not being 100% fleshed out to my eyes but then again I've created my idea of those two over reading 20 books so I am expecting too much from a 2+ hour film. A few specific things though:

Maturin is far too young and pretty. Stephen Maturin in the books is essentially Patrick O'Brien himself, as O'Brien is the passenger commenting on his admiration for heorism and leadership as exemplified by Jack Aubrey, so is Maturin the passenger, the narrator if you will, as we journey through Jack Aubrey's world. Aubrey would not be as interesting a character and understood of a character were it not for Maturin playing tour guide much of the time, I have pictured Stephen Maturin as the every man, complete with his inability to function around women and his addiction to laudanum. Not the dashing bespectacled ken doll. But hey its a movie and chicks buy tickets too I guess, right?

Aubrey was a tad too one-dimentional for me as well, we get the leadership and heroism clear as day, but we see very little of the depth of the character of Jack Aubrey- his helpless and shallow infidelity, his ineptitude in everything non-naval, his screechingly awkward and tacky sense of humor and musicianship. And his snoring. Somehow they could have left that in, surely? Why can't we have an action hero who snores? Bastards.

In the book the film is mostly based on, Surprise is chasing an American ship during the war of 1812, and making it a French ship in 1805 is a little awkward in places, to me it seemed too convenient. I would have preferred the original story to have been kept. Among other things, the book "Far Side of the World" is an examination of Aubrey's ego and pride much more than a statement of English Naval heroism and tradition, which the film becomes as it is shifted into the height of the Napoleonic era. It's too bad...O'Brien in writing about the American navy in those days paints us in a pretty good light even though we're the "enemy", though elements were kept, most notably having the French ship be American built, as a nod to our technological advances in shipbuilding at the time. But I suppose that was a risk the filmmakers were not willing to take for an American audience. Too bad, it misses an opportunity to shed us in a truly unique light. Chicken *#*#*#*# filmmakers.

Still, a terrific film, which captures the spirit of the series and the core relationship between Maturin and Aubrey very well.

Here's hoping more of O'Briens books are filmed and we are allowed a deeper look at the characters of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin.

 

Wow this is one of the best views of the film I have read, from a "purist" standpoint, from the perspective of one who loves the books. Also the best exposition so far of the issue of changing the time and the nationality of the enemy. Unfortunately I think it misses an essential point, in that there is no way to satisfy the purist in a 2 hour film, especially given the depth of this series of books, which I doubt could ever be captured outside of the books themselves. I agree he's too harsh with Bettany as well, I thought he was quite good, if not quite Maturin to me.

I sort of view the film as merchandise, as a pleasing addition to the Aubrey-Maturin world of books, a cool toy if you will, based on and in O'Brien's world but not really adding anything to it. Sort of like those Star Wars action figures people my age were so insane about in the 70's. I still have a few. I'll buy the DVD.

But hey, how many people will go buy O'Brien's books now because of the movie? Talk about a legacy.

 

Definitely a fun movie to watch and great to see on the big screen with the great sound system at the theater I go to. That alone makes it very worthwhile to pay to see.

The action was good and I liked what little character developement there was between Aubrey and Maturin (although there needed to be more; maybe for future films). Not having read any of the books I had no problem with the portrayals and I enjoyed Bettany's work.

The only problem I had with the movie was some of the editing during the blonde boy's surgery, the final battle and how they delt with time lapse with the sailing.

 

...and the fact that foreign language movies don't typically win big categories is the reason that Gladiator got much attention at all.

 

Saw it yesterday.

I liked it. 3 1/2 outta 4.

 

A Tale of Two Wheedles

Master & Commander; and the Other Side of a Really Long Movie Title

I was so distraught after learning that my $4 for a ticket and a small popcorn was going away that I couldn’t decipher the Aussie’s imitation of a British accent for most of it. Not that it was bad, but I felt like Turkish in tha back of a winnie full of gypsies in Snatch.

It was enjoyable and I liked the comparison w/ the tribulations of Jonah, but I think the take of Moby Dick-even though it hadn’t been written yet- was more apropos. I think the cast was colorful and like the open-ended twist at the end. It’s definitely worth watching a couple of times.

The battle actions scenes are intense, but this is no Gladiator or Brave Heart. It’s much more entertaining than Mel Gibson’s crappy Patriot of the same era. The movie is very unpredictable and well paced for a long film. There’s plenty of comic relief to break up the solemn mood of the film and you really get a chance to see what life was like aboard the Royal Navy after the American Revolution and b4 their rise to unchallenged prominence after the Malay crippled Napoleon’s conquest of Europe in the seas.

I think the Dr.’s theories & prediction of Darwinian evolution thru a shared experience of the life on the Galapagos Islands were out of place.

BTW, they stole the self operation scene from Ronin. Well done though.

3 stars