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

United States of America

Adventure, Drama, War

20th Century Fox, Miramax, Universal Pictures, Samuel Goldwyn Films

Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, James D'Arcy, Robert Pugh, David Threlfall, Lee Ingleby

Peter Weir

Peter Weir, John Collee

Taglines: The courage to do the impossible lies in the hearts of men.

epic, ship, navy, based on novel or book, surgeon, royal navy, historical fiction, period drama, napoleonic wars, naturalist, frigate, self surgery, sea battle, weevil, high seas, naval warfare, 19th century, galapagos islands, galapagos, naval battle, english navy, surprise-ending

After an abrupt and violent encounter with a French warship inflicts severe damage upon his ship, a captain of the British Royal Navy begins a chase over two oceans to capture or destroy the enemy, though he must weigh his commitment to duty and ferocious pursuit of glory against the safety of his devoted crew, including the ship's thoughtful surgeon, his best friend.

Reviews:

Author: GenerationofSwine
What you have here is Crowe still thinking that he's the greatest actor that ever lived. That all takes away the fun of a movie that had the potential to be a high seas epic like, say, Captain Blood. Peter Weir lets Crowe go crazy and you can almost taste the ego dripping out of the pours of every seen, so much so that he doesn't allow Paul Bettany to shine and he's a good actor in his own right, as is James D'Arcy and again, Crowe seems to want to hog all the acting glory there too. Honestly, its hard to sit down and watch a man try to upstage everyone in every scene, especially when they are actors that could hold their own against Crowe...if Crowe allowed that to happen. So, you get to sit back and watch ego and that gets boring. It's a shame, the script and directing were there, it could have been a great film if we didn't just see ego shine.