Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Starring: Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany
Directed by: Peter Weir
Rated: PG-13 for intense battle sequences, related images, and brief language.
Parental Notes: Youngsters may find the battle sequences and medical procedures shown in the film too intense; there is plenty of attention to realism here. Teens looking for some brains with their brawn will likely enjoy it.
“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” is a surprisingly intellectual swashbuckling epic, a story of the Napoleonic Wars told with incredible grace and attention to detail. It’s easy to become lost in the small world of the H.M.S. Surprise and feel as though these characters are historical figures who lived and breathed the way we do today. Based on the first of the beloved Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O’Brien, this is a brilliant seafaring adventure tale, one which is simultaneously harrowing and uplifting.
The story centers around two men, Captain Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) and ship’s surgeon Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany). Both are at once shining examples of the Royal Navy and complete opposites. Aubrey is a man of action and humor, a charismatic leader of men and a brilliant strategist who plays the violin and tells agonizing puns at dinner. Maturin is an intellectual, a surgeon, cellist, and natural philosopher who is calm enough to operate on his own gunshot wounds, and is skilled enough to perform open-skull surgery on the ship’s deck and seal the hole with a coin.
Their friendship is a close one, and Weir is wise enough to let their friendship show in the things they don’t have to say to each other. They play duets with the ease of old friends and their respect for each others’ talents is palpable. Even so, they are vastly different sorts of men. The gulf between their views of the world is painfully apparent when Maturin’s plans to go ashore and collect plant and animal specimens are ruined by Aubrey’s determination to pursue his quarry at sea.
Both men are essentially worshipped by the crew, a collection of men which includes teenaged officers and old sea dogs. “Master and Commander” gives us time to get to know them, from the weak officer who is branded a bringer of bad luck by the men to the young officer Lord Blakeney (Max Pirkis), a boy torn between the fighting life Aubrey represents and the careful science of Maturin.
Nearly the entire film takes place aboard Aubrey’s ship, the H.M.S. Surprise, a smallish war vessel which is badly out-manned, out-gunned, and out-teched by the ship it has been ordered to sink or capture, the French warship Acheron. The Acheron has twice the men and twice the cannon of the Surprise, and its specially reinforced hull makes it both very fast and very difficult to damage with cannon.
The first encounter between the Acheron and the Surprise is terrifying in its realism, with cannonballs whizzing past almost too fast to be seen, tearing holes in the ship and sending wooden shrapnel into the bodies of the men on board. The Surprise and its crew are soundly beaten, and barely escape. Sense would dictate a return to England for repairs, but Captain Aubrey is sure of himself, his ship, and his men, and refuses to turn back. They will repair the ship and tend to the wounded while pursuing the Acheron.
That pursuit veers dangerously close to insanity as the Surprise makes its way around Cape Horn toward the Galapagos islands. The horrific storms, freezing weather, and slow-healing wounds sap the will of the crew until it becomes clear that only Aubrey’s charismatic leadership is keeping the crew together. The men would follow “Lucky” Jack Aubrey to hell and back, but they are sorely tested and do not all turn out to be the men they would like.
“Master and Commander” contains only a handful of scenes which could be considered action, and there are numerous sequences which give a feel for the slow pace of life on a ship. While the violence of the battle sequences is not overly gory, it is very intense. This film neither glorifies nor shies away from the brutality of the events.
However, it’s the medical sequences which will likely test the endurance of audiences. These scenes, involving amputation, bullet removal, and broken bones, are shot to focus on the men (sometimes mere boys) rather than the injuries, but anyone with an imagination will cringe at the pain the people involved must be enduring. Somehow this careful, premeditated agony is harder to bear than the quick violence of the battles.
This is a film of intellectual action, a character study and grand historical epic. Those in search of mindless violence and schlocky horror will be bored, but those who find brainless Hollywood flicks tiresome will be in their element.