This movie is directed by Peter Weir, and Peter Weir makes good movies. He is almost unimpeachable. My favourite moment in 'Master and Commander' involves a weevil and a particularly cheesy joke but the actors and the movie itself sell it so that it becomes awesome. We can say the same about the movie overall. There are problems with it, there are always problems, but it pulls off a feat I wouldn't have thought possible and it must come down to Peter Weir ultimately, and to Russell Crowe.
This film is loosely based on two of the novels in the legendary series of historical novels by Patrick O'Brian, centred on Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr Stephen Maturin and their adventures during the Napoleonic wars. To make the movie they've condensed down the two novels ('Master and Commander' and 'Far Side Of The World') into a solid adventure movie, perhaps a definitive adventure movie, cutting out the dirtier and gritter and muck encrusted bits. It's really up there with Star Trek II as an iconic seafaring movie, with Russell Crowe providing the dynamism and the essential thinking manly man performance of his career. He holds in his ebullience and really makes the character his own confection.
So, what's this film about? Well, it's about a number of things. First, HMS Surprize is on a mission to stop a French man'o'war steaming toward South America. Second, Jack is having some problems with friend Stephen who has signed on as an overqualified surgeon to see the world as a naturalist. Third, a midshipman called Hollam is having problems proving himself. Fourth, the Surprize may be jinxed. Fifth and finally, Jack and Stephen play string duets when there's nothing else happening, on violin and cello. The music is wonderful, and fits intrinsically into the mood of the movie, and perhaps illustrates how hard it is to describe this epic beast of a film. Without Russell Crowe it would be an elaborate tapestry but with him it's an epic beast and deservedly so, balancing practically every aspect of every story and managing to avoid melodrama almost all the time.
The second lead is Paul Bettany as Stephen, solidly pulling off a sometimes petulant role with some gravitas and charm. The supporting cast is incredibly dense with people you think you've seen in a thousand other places. The child midshipmen are as good as can be expected, while the story of doomed Hollam is handled tenderly. I can only presume that the suicide in 'Dead Poets Society' is handled as well, that being another famous movie of Weir's. Gosh, it's hard to categorise Peter Weir movies, they're just one-offs. 'The Truman Show', 'Dead Poets Society', 'Witness', 'Master And Commander', 'Green Card' and probably others don't fit in boxes. Isn't that wonderful?
Getting back to the movie, it's a bit long. I like long movies but if you like movies where a lot happens quickly then maybe it's not for you. The trick at the end that allows Jack to win is not particularly original but what would be? Would officers do such a dishonest thing to win a sea battle? I have no idea. Ultimately it doesn't matter as the movie signs off in the best way possible: In the middle of a new chase. If I made movies, lots of them would start in the middle of action and finish at the beginning of a new caper that we will never see. That is exactly right. That's life. We don't need things set up and explained, by humbug!
There was never a sequel to this film, and if I switch to movie studio mentality I can see why. It cost $150,000,000 and only (any profit is good to me!) grossed $212,000,000 according to Wikipedia. Now to me that's a massive profit but studios aren't people and they really don't understand adventure movies. Studios like cheap comedies and popcorn effects movies and they won't make anything else now. Nothing. Long gone are the '80s where they'd make a horde of mid-budget movies and see what stuck to the wall in the aftermath while making an overall profit. It was cynical then and it is cynical now but in a different way. There is no sequel because they don't get a movie with no bad language, no women and very little violence. I on the other hand adore it for being different, while reminding myself to feel a little bad for being a prude. I would have loved two of three more movies. There were eighteen books still left over!
It's a good movie and I haven't articulated myself well. A good adventure movie, with lots of shipboard dramas, naturalism on the Galapagos Islands, some self-surgery, and string music. It's kind of the way movies should be.
O.
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