Monday, March 27, 2006

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

If you want a swashbuckling good time, watch Master and Commander.

Russell Crowe stars as Captain "Lucky" Jack Aubrey. This is set during the Napoleonic wars. Crowe plays a cunning English sea captain that is commissioned to sink, burn, or take the French Man O' War, the Acheron, as a prize. The Acheron is a much faster and larger ship with more crew members and cannons. Crowe has to use his ingenius naval warfare abilites to hunt it down and stop it.

At first, the Acheron attacks Crowe's ship, the HMS Surprise, by taking them by surprise by hiding in the fog. The Surprise takes a lot of damage and several of the crew are badly injured. One little midshipman, Lord Blakeney, a 12 year old kid has to get his arm amputated. The primitive surgery back then was scary. The only thing the kid had was a piece of wood to bite on. They sawed off his arm without anasthesia. He makes me look like a baby when I chickened out of my dentist's appointment awhile ago, because I found out I wasn't going to get general anasthesia to pull out all 4 of my wisdom teeth. The kid was tough cookie. He just chewed hard on the piece of wood and didn't cry.

Captain Crowe then manages a way to get his ship back into the fog to hide from the Acheron. Another time, he constructs a raft with sails to make it look like the HMS Surprise. They get away in the middle of the night.

They sail around Brazil and visit the Galapagos Islands. Paul Bettany plays Crowe's friend, the ship's doctor. He is a naturalist and cautions him saying that seeking revenge against the Acheron may cloud his judgment and endanger the entire crew.

During one of the storms, Crowe had to decide whether to save one of the sailors who fell overboard or save the whole ship that was sinking. While wearing his Napoleon hat, Crowe had the difficult decision of having to choose between the lesser of two evils.

Although this wasn't a pirate movie, it reminded me of one of my favorite videogames, Pirates. In the game, I learned about different ships and the rules of sailing.

One complaint I had was that it was hard to hear and understand what people were saying sometimes. I find that to be true with many movies. Actors should enunciate better or the sound editors need to do a better job. It's especially difficult to hear when they're talking fast with a thick British accent. Sometimes, people are talking too softly. Talk better, people!

I thought the movie was well made, overall, but I would never want to be on a ship like that in real life. I'd probably be puking all over the place everyday for many months. After our senior class trip in college when we went deep sea fishing, I swore that I would never go on a boat ever again. I still plan to keep that promise. God, I still have painful memories of that tragic day when all of us were blowing chunks non-stop for 8 hours.

Another big reason, I wouldn't want to be on that boat would be that it's filled with about 200 stinky sailors and no women. That would be one of the worst prisons to be on. A rolling puke inducing prison where all the guys haven't taken showers since they first boarded the ship. How did they keep the food from spoiling after long trips without refrigeration? The food must have been terrible. What were the sleeping conditions like? Unimaginably awful, I assume. What about the bathrooms? I have to go the bathroom a lot and I bet the conditions would be pretty bad. You better pray you don't get hurt or if you do, you better pray that you die instantly during sea battles. Otherwise, you'd get surgery with unsanitary instruments. Can you imagine them sawing your arm off with a dull dirty knife? Yoinks!

I'm glad it's just a movie. If I had to board that ship for Her Majesty's service, I'd probably jump off and drown just like that one dork did in the movie.

The highs: Realistic naval battles, great epic feel.

The lows: 197 sweaty stinkin' sailors. Hard to understand what people are saying at times.

The Verdict: A swashbuckling epic without pirates.

My rating: 88, B.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As a Brit who has had to listen to Yanks mauling our language for years....I'd say you have a bit of a sauce complaining about 'British Accents'.
Do you think its any easier for us trying to decipher the noises made by New Yawkers for example?
I didn't have a problem hearing the cast in Master and Commander. Its how real Brits speak. Don't see why every British character in film has to sound like a member of the Royal family. (God forbid.)