Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Starring: Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany
Directed by: Peter Weir

Rating: 4 (out of 5)

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Ah, it's a sailor's life for me. The open sea, the camaraderie, the months on end without any female companionship whatsoever. It sounds like my high-school years, only without the open sea or camaraderie.

Actually, a big chunk of my 20's, as well.

But never mind that. We're going back to the good old days. When men were men, and weren't afraid to brave scurvy, lice, seasickness, and drowning in order to sail around the world in boats barely big enough to hold them. Now THAT'S a man! No wonder the Village People wrote "In The Navy." If I were a Village Person, I'd be away into it. I think I'd also be the Leatherman.

Anyway, the movie here is "Master and Commander: The Far Side Of The World," and the title is very, very telling. It's got to be one of the longest movie titles in history, and the movie itself is long, too. Of course, it could be about 20 minutes shorter if you didn't have to read the entire thing at the beginning.

Strike the pose...

As the movie opens, we meet the crew of the HMS Surprise. Now, I'm not really sure who is in charge of naming boats in the British Navy, but I think I can say without fear of reprisals that "Surprise" is a pretty crappy name for a ship. I mean, it doesn't exactly strike fear into your heart, does it? If I'm a French Frigate during the Napoleonic wars (the setting of this seafaring epic) and I see a ship coming at me named, say, the "Eat Tasty Death, Froggie!" I'd probably drop a load in fear. But "Surprise"? The only reaction THAT name is going to get is a "Sacre bleu! You eenglish peeg dogs! You remembered mon birthday! I told you not to do anytheeng! You guys!"

An aside: a cheesy French accent doesn't translate well to text. Trust me.

So, the "Surprise" is near Brazil, on the hunt for a French vessel called "the Acheron". Again, a pretty crappy name, but then again, I have no idea what it means. According to Babel Fish, it means "Acheron", which doesn't exactly fucking HELP, does it?

Anyway, it's early morning, and the kid on watch is SURE that, through the dense fog, he's spotted another ship. So, he sounds off the alarm. The "Alarm", by the way, is some dude with a snare drum who belts out a totally awesome Neil Peart drum solo in order to wake everyone up. Among those roused from their beauty sleep is the Captain of the ship "Lucky Jack" Aubrey (Crowe).

Now, I'm not in the habit of complaining about Hollywood or anything (stop snickering) but this means that, in 2003, there were 2 movies that were eerily similar. This, and "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl". How similar are they? Well, they both have ridiculously long titles; they both take place on the high seas in days of yore. And they both have Captains named Jack? COINCIDENCE????

Okay, probably, but still...

Well, Aubrey gets up there and looks through his little telescope-thingy, and doesn't see anything. So everything is fine and dandy...until about 10 seconds later when the ship gets pretty much blown to smithereens by cannon fire. Bummer.

"Welcome Wagon!"

This raises an interesting point, in that I know now that I would never last more than 5 minutes in the British Royal Navy. These guys are cool and polite. Whereas I'm more of a...well, a big pussy, quite frankly. See, in the movie, the ship has just been pulverized. Things are falling down, there's dead and bleeding bodies, fires burning...it's a mess. So, what does one sailor call out?

"DAMAGE REPORT, IF YOU PLEASE!"

MAN that's cool. That's NOTHING like what I would say. If it were me, I'd call out something MUCH different...for instance...

"MOMMMYYYYYYYYYYY!"

Well, it turns out that this ship is the aforementioned "Acheron", and you've got to think that they're not going to be sitting still for the Royal Navy anytime soon. However, Aubrey's a bright fellow, and he manages to get what's left of the ship to safety, under cover of more fog. But since the sails are pretty much Swiss cheese, he does this by sending out a bunch of tiny little lifeboats to TOW it to cover. I'm no sailor, but this seemed a little far-fetched to me. It's the equivalent of Gary Coleman, Emmanuel Lewis, Mini Me, and a Smurf trying to pull Star Jones away from a snack table.

But, as I alluded to earlier, there is a cost. And one who pays the most dearly for it is Midshipman Blakeney (Max Perkis). On the plus side, he's still alive, but he has to have his arm amputated. On the minus side, he's about 10 years old. Now, what a small child is doing in the Royal Navy is anyone's guess, but hey, I didn't recruit him. But, because he's a small child, they treat him well. Heck, the ship's doctor, Stephen Maturin (Bettany) even remarks, mid-saw, that the kid is the "bravest patient I've ever had." And the kid just bears down and takes it. Whereas I, an adult, would have the following response:

"AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!! MY FUCKING ARM!!!!"

"Well, I could always play drums for Def Leppard..."

So shortly afterwards, two other young kids show up and tell Aubrey that one of them saw the "Acheron" being built in New York. He then produces a perfect, scale model of the vessel, detailed enough to show where it's strong, and where it's vulnerable. Now, this information could have been a FUCK of a lot more useful before they got shredded with cannon-fire, but Aubrey takes a different approach. He rewards the two kids with an extra ration of rum.

THIS is where I perked up. Sure, this navy business seems pretty nasty, what with the whole "no women" thing and the months of isolation at a time. But they reward you when you do a good job with EXTRA BOOZE? Dude, I'm SO there. In fact, I'm going to start my own similar reward system RIGHT NOW.

Hmmm...I see that earlier, I made a joke about Star Jones's weight! Capital Job, Mr. Critic! An extra ration of rum for you!

(One extra ration of rum later)

Oh yeah...I could TOTALLY get used to this.

Well, before long, the ship is repaired, but before you can say "Yo ho ho," the fucking Acheron is on their asses again. So, they make like Carl Lewis and get the hell out of there as fast as they can, knowing they're outclassed. But then, Aubrey has a brilliant idea. He waits until nightfall, rigs up a scale model of the ship, complete with lights, and turns the "Surprise" around. It's actually pretty clever, especially for a Russell Crowe movie.

"This thing better not have shoe polish on it again! I MEAN it!!! That shit's not funny!"

But things go badly again. You know, I've gotta tell you, this crew goes through more shit than a starving dung beetle at a rodeo. Between getting their asses constantly kicked, brutal storms, loss of wind, poor morale, and kids becoming War Amps, you've got to wonder who gave this dude the nickname "Lucky Jack".

Actually, that dung beetle thing was a pretty decent metaphor. Well done! An extra ration of rum for Mr. Critic!

(One extra ration of rum later)

Nice.

Well, suffice it to say Aubrey's not the kind of guy who gives up easily. And so they keep pursuing the Acheron...and pursuing, and pursuing. After a while, we're not sure whether he's doing it out of a sense of duty, revenge, or both. And the question is raised... "How far is too far to go?" (The answer, of course, is "To the far side of the world. Didn't you spend 20 minutes reading the title, dumbass?")

Hey...that was a callback! See, in comedy, when you make a reference to an earlier joke, it's called a "callback". That was a good one, too! An extra ration of rum for Mr. Critic!

(One extra ration of rum later)

Man, those Village People were on to something with this whole "In The Navy" thing.

Russell Crowe's remount of "Pirates Of Penzance" wasn't as successful as he'd hoped

The movie was a pretty big hit, taking in close to $100 million at the box office. It also got a ton of Oscar nominations. Yet, I had pretty much no desire to see it. I missed out. This is a solid piece of seafaring entertainment. Most of the credit, as far as I'm concerned, goes to director Weir. This guy is a phenomenally under-appreciated filmmaking talent. And yet, he doesn't make movies very often. If the name is unfamiliar to you, he's directed such diverse projects as "The Truman Show", "Fearless", "Dead Poets Society", "Witness", and one of the most overlooked and underrated movies I've ever seen, "The Mosquito Coast". Of his last 7 movies (spanning 19 years!), he's been nominated as "Best Director" 4 times. And while he's never really done anything like this before, you'd never know by watching it.

The battle sequences are mind-boggling, the performances are fantastic across the board, and the visuals are lush and breathtaking. Plus, he has a wonderful gift for directing actors. Robin Williams, Harrison Ford, Jim Carrey, and now Russell Crowe have all given career-highlight performances in Weir films. I mean, the guy even got an Oscar nomination for Rosie Perez, and face it, Rosie's a HORRIBLE actress.

It's all almost enough to forgive him for "Green Card". But I swore a long time ago never to forgive ANYONE for "Green Card". There are grips and craft service people that should never work again, simply because they were associated with "Green Card". It's a bad movie, is what I'm saying.

"Don't look now, sir, but I think we're on a lame website..."

Also very good is Bettany as the surgeon. Aubrey and Maturin have a lot of scenes together, as the characters are very close. But, these scenes are handled very well. They're written well, and you never have a hard time buying their friendship. In fact, Maturin is probably the more interesting character. Besides being a doctor, he's also a naturalist who longs to explore the world finding new species of animals. His character develops a strong bond with young "Lefty" Blakeney as well, who seems to want to follow in his footsteps. It adds a lot to what could have easily become a pretty simple revenge story.

Now, on to the DVDs. Fox Home Video has done this PROPERLY. All you home-video nuts must be sick and tired of multiple versions of films coming out. First they release "Gigli", so you buy it. THEN there's the director's cut, the special edition, the special collector's edition, and the double-secret-super-duper-collectaholic's edition. Soon, you have 5 copies of the same movie, all with different extras, and if you're a fan, you have to have all of them. I call this "Lord Of The Rings" syndrome.

But this time out, they've released 2 editions at the same time. One is bare bones. There are no extras, it's cheaper, and it's for the folks that don't care about special features...they just want the movie. Then there's the collector's edition: This has pretty much everything you need, extra-wise. Plus, it's handsomely packaged. Two editions, for two kinds of collectors, released at the same time. It SHOULD happen more often, but that would be too logical, wouldn't it?

Whatever version you wind up with, it's well worth the time as a movie. Sure, it may drag a tiny bit at times, but that's what happens when you make an adventure movie with intelligent, well-defined characters.

And, on that note, I have about 6 extra rations of rum that are demanding my attention. Capital job, Mr. Critic!