Posted: 11/15/2003 3:06:26 PM EDT
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Excellent flick. Highly recommended. The thinking man's action movie. |
| The whole movie just oozes manliness. (And not in a gay way, either.) Crowe plays the Tory naval captain to perfection. The liberal character is portrayed as intelligent and competent, but petulant and completely misguided on some issues. There's swordplay, cannons, duty, drinking, leadership, and bad jokes. |
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Another one who liked it, (include the wife if you will). I enjoyed this more than any Star Wars or Star Trek. It's in the vein of the Hornblower stories. Sorry, no chickies in the movie, although there were a few in the book. Crowe does not have to carry this movie although if it were less than excellent he could have. |
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I'm going tonight, one critic said the conflict btw Crowe's character and his friend, the doctor, over whether Crowe is getting his men in over their heads in unbelieveable because you can't imagine Crowe's character losing a battle, lol. I heard some of the sound effects on the radion, they sounded pretty damn good. They even did things like find a button manufacturer that still made the same kind of buttons as in that time period. |
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My wife and I saw it this afternoon. It was excellent, visually stunning and totally drew you into what was going on. Crowe and Bettany played off each other like Captain Aubrey and Dr. Maturin do in the books, and Peter Weir did a fantastic job of bringing the spirit of the books to the screen. Two enthusiastic thumbs up. |
I thought the ball looked a little small for a musket of that vintage. Yeah, still shouldn't have survived, taking it in the gut like that. |
| I disagree, I think it was an OK movie, nothing that will win a best picture Oscar. There was a lack of development of the enemy and even the good guys. I would be interested in why he is so preoccupied with the French Captain. Not to mention it left a huge opening for what smells like a sequel. The problem is that this story was adapted from several books in a series and thus is unable to fully develop the characters. I think the Hornblower movies were better. Although you could not compare the special effects. |
You should see the French ship they were fighting against, then you'd understand. I saw it this afternoon, one of the best movies I have seen in a long while. And I think it's a shoo-in for Best Picture, except maybe they wont vote for it because Crowe starred in the Best Picture movie last year. |
Try 19 books... |
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Haven't seen it, but I plan to. It looks good and sounds good, according to this excellent review, Master and Commander: A Valuable Fable by Michael A. Hoffman. |
| Guys, for those of you who liked this movie and are readers, please read these books! Patrick O'Brian was probably the best writer of historical fiction ever. There is depth and character development rare in this type of novel. Highly literate, full of action and adventure. The 19th century sailing jargon can be a little hard to decipher at times, but stick with it. For any reader with an interest in quality adventure fiction, a must, and a fun way to learn about Napoleonic- era naval warfare. |
him digging it out from underneath his own rib was a little far out there too |
a giant squid comes out of the ocean and sinks both ships |
Too Jules Vern. |
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The ship in the book was an American ship, harassing whalers and taking them as prizes. The doctor never gets shot in the book. What's close to it is a seaman is given grapeshot to stick in his mouth because he is too talkative, (called it gobstopping). He swallows one and the doc has to make him upchuck it before it clogs his vitals. In the book they catch up to the American ship after it runs aground in the South Pacific but there is an interesting ending that leaves things a little up in the air. The scenes around the Galapagos are in there and one speech is taken verbatim where Aubrey tells doc he can't go ashore. Aubrey and Maturin fall overboard and end up getting picked out of the water by some native chicks (kinda NOW types) who nearly decide a negative fate for them before letting them off on Tom Hank's coconut island. The Surprise's crew look for them, catch sight of the outrigger with the Amazon types but can't catch up to them. By then they sight the island and the distress signal of Aubrey and doc, who were wondering if they'd ever be found. Far Side of the World was about no. 11 in a series of 20 or so. |