I found this movie to be good, but kind of long and a bit on the boring side. It seemed to me that we saw the tree without the forest. Or in other words why did we care about these gents on the boat?
The story starts out showing you this wonderful ship, The Surprise, full of British soldiers who still manage to be somewhat polite or at least the officers do. You are informed that they are after a French ship, which happens to be a superior ship. It sneaks up on them twice nearly destroying the boat, but the Surprise manages to escape without drastic harm. While the battles are the best that I have seen on a ship (note that I haven't seen too many navy war films), the story is more about the Master and Commander, Lucky Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) and the difficult decisions he has to make. He often has to deal with difficult situations that result in hard decisions he doesn’t like making. These would include the death of crewmembers, whether or not to continue to pursue the French vessel, and disciplining the men upon his ship. He also must make the battle decisions that will keep his ship from being destroyed by French ship. He often makes decisions that may be unpopular with the crew, or ones he does not like himself. Like when disciplining a lad for insubordination to an officer.
Aubrey does have a voice of heart's reason, which is his friend doctor Stephen Maturin (Chaucer, I mean Paul Bettany). What the good doctor thinks is proper and what the Commander knows is right, often wars and they have their arguments--like over stopping at the Galapagos Islands. Stephen would like to stop since it is a region of biological diversity. He gets mad at Aubrey, when the Commander decides they simply do not have the time to spare after promising Stephen the chance to walk across the Island. This movie has its share of action such as storms and battles, but it is truly about the microcosiem that is a ship--and the internal conflicts within. You actually come to care about these characters. Alas, we are not shown enough about the surrounding war, so we have nothing into which to place this story's context. Which I think is a mistake on the part of this film.
The special effects are good, I felt like I was on a real ship, but without the seasickness. The battles were nicely done, but not too gory. The crude medical stuff looked realistic and they left out the over the top details, which would make one lose their lunch.
The acting and script were nicely done. I could buy into Crowe's character; he was a gentleman and an officer. Never losing his finer points such as violin playing, and his sense of humor. But he was also able to make those hard decisions. Russell is a better actor than I usually give him credit for. Nice to be wrong sometimes. Paul Brittany is great as the doctor. He is the voice of the heart. Wanting to go home instead of fight, longing the most to catch a flightless bird (a new species to be presented to the biological community), kind and caring with his patients. He cannot understand some of the decisions that Aubrey makes and they quarrel, but still remain fast friends. Billy Boyd plays coxswain Barret Bonden, which is not a terribly important role in the movie, but well-done none-the-less. He has a few lines, none of which I can remember now. Max Pirkis plays young midshipman Blakeney who has a big role in this film. Early on the young man loses an arm in battle. He becomes a friend to Stephen and shows us a great courage in a young boy. He seems to understand both the captain and the doctor and is sort of a link between the worlds of both.
I thought this movie fairly well done. It is long 2 hours and 20 minutes. It seems to move slow even with all the action. But the plot is okay and the script is nicely done. It seems to be a section of the history of this ship, a day in the life of The Surprise, rather than a full story. We are missing what is going on with the war, and the history of Aubrey. We are isolated in this story like a ship out to sea. If you like historical British Navy films or are just a die hard Russell Crowe fan then you want to see this one.