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Russell Crowe stars in
this sea adventure as Captain Aubrey, skipper of a british fighting ship, HMS
Surprise during the war with the French. What follows over the next couple of
hours are some great moments on the sea in the form of battles, and some
pretty rough sailing conditions for the captain and his crew. This story deals
with Aubrey's command of the Surprise and their orders to stop at all costs,
the French ship Acheron. When the Acheron attacks Aubrey's ship out of the
middle of a pea soup fog unexpectedly, the game of cat and mouse begins.
Invariably one draws the
comparison to Gladiator and whether or not this was meant to be on the same
scale as that wonderful movie. If that was the case, then the answer is sadly
no. The story is good and I must admit that I enjoyed it quite a great deal,
however you will not constantly be awestruck (or oarstruck if you wanted the
pun that you must have expected.) This film is a good solid piece of
storytelling that is worth the bang for your buck however is not enough to
justify itself as an epic of the scope that Gladiator was on.
In terms of
cinematography, Master and Commander is absolutely stunning with scenes that
will shock and amaze you as the reality of the lack of medical aid in the
1800's is brought to the fore. It doesn't depict the doctor of the ship as
barbarian, rather as a highly educated man, using the tools and technology
that is available. Possibly one standout moment on the medical front was when
one of the men has a crushed part of his skull and the doctor places a coin
over the hole and then sews it shut. Before you shudder, the injured man makes
a full recovery!
Some of the tactics used
during the battles are amazing and it is truly a matter of man against man as
the captains of two ships try to outwit each other constrained by their own
technology and the elements. When the wind dies, so does the ship's movement
through the water. Whilst the movie does stay focused on Aubrey and his
English crew, you do feel a sense of respect for the French captain of the
ship Acheron, especially toward the end of the movie which I won't wreck by
telling you.
Master and Commander is
a solid piece of storytelling that will keep most audiences watching all the
way through to the end. It probably isn't for everyone and for those expecting
another Gladiator, this isn't it and that expectation is plain unreasonable as
the two as so far apart to the point that they are not comparable in terms of
story and style. Possibly another point I must make is that whilst I didn't
notice the passage of time during the movie, two people who I watched it with
later complained that whilst it was a good flick, they found it a bit long
winded with a running time of 133 minutes.
I recommend this disc to
anyone who loves a good solid story, combined with some masterful
cinematography.
This title is 16:9 as you would quite rightly
expect with beautiful detail throughout. For those who might suffer some
motion sickness, this might even be one to miss as the camera does sway a bit
in order to give the constantly feeling of being at sea. Once you do get used
to it however, it certainly doesn't present a problem. That said however, I
don't get motion sickness from either games or movies so at no time did I
notice anything, it was an observation from a third party watching the feature
with me.
You've got a choice here of the Dolby surround mix or the
DTS one and having listened to both during the review I can say that they are
both wonderful. In my opinion the Dolby won out just slightly as far as bass
was concerned and the DTS won out in terms of overall clarity so my vote would
go with DTS if your system supports this format. All the sounds of the ocean
are hear for you to enjoy and every channel gets a heck of a workout.
There are some really
neat features here on this two disc edition that do make it shine for folks
who want to get the most out of the whole Master and Commander experience.
There is a great featurette here called 100 Days that is a great insight into
the period taken during principal photography. We go behind the scenes and
generally get a really indepth look at what goes on behind the movie making
process.
In the wake of O'Brian
deals with Peter Weir generally waxing lyrical as to how highly he holds
O'Brian and his involvement in the movie.
Cinematic Phasmids are a
look at the special effects used in the flick and then on the flip side we
look at the sound effects department and what it takes to bring a movie like
this to the screen in a way that amazes both senses.
HBO First Look is simply
that, a special put together by HBO that covers all the pertinent information
about the feature itself and does utilise a number of images from other
features that you might have already seen. All said though, it is a very
concise package that makes for some good viewing.
Finally we have two last
areas that involve watching multi angle shooting that allows us to see what
can happen when shooting the same scene from different angles and then put
them together to make the one scene. There are a number of options to see the
end result and to top that off there is a stills gallery that whilst
entertaining, didn't do that much for me.
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The Hundred Days
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In the Wake of O'Brian
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Cinematic Phasmids
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Sound Design
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HBO First Look
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Deleted Scenes
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Multi Camera Shooting
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Stills Gallery
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