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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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83
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89
Man on Wire
85
Slumdog Millionaire
84
Momma's Man
84
Christmas Tale, A
84
Happy-Go-Lucky
83
Trouble the Water
83
U2 3D
82
Tell No One
82
Rachel Getting Married
82
Frozen River
82
Let the Right One In
81
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
79
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
78
I've Loved You So Long
77
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
76
Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
75
Pool, The
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
72
I Served the King of England
71
Frost/Nixon
70
I.O.U.S. A
69
Ashes of Time Redux
69
Fear(s) of the Dark
68
August Evening
68
Hunger
67
Synecdoche, New York
64
Appaloosa
63
JCVD
63
Eden
63
Changeling
62
Duchess, The
59
We Are Wizards
57
Special
57
Sixty Six
56
Religulous
55
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
55
What Just Happened?
54
Battle in Seattle
54
Good Dick
53
RocknRolla
51
Morning Light
50
Breakfast with Scot
47
How About You
47
Choke
46
Dukes, The
43
Tru Loved
43
Gardens of the Night
41
Cthulhu
40
Igor
40
Other End of the Line, The
34
My Name Is Bruce
34
Otto; or Up with Dead People
32
Repo! The Genetic Opera
31
Hounddog
30
Guitar, The
28
Fireproof
27
Lake City
26
House of the Sleeping Beauties
26
Filth and Wisdom
xx
Dostana
xx
Black Balloon, The
xx
Let Them Chirp Awhile
xx
Local Color
xx
Nobel Son
xx
Extreme Movie
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
20th Century Fox Film Corporation
 |
|
FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for intense battle sequences, related images, and brief language
Starring
Russell Crowe,
Paul Bettany,
James D'Arcy,
Edward Woodall,
Chris Larkin,
Max Pirkis,
Jack Randall,
and
Max Benitz
Based on author Patrick O'Brian's series of Aubrey/Maturin novels, the film is set during the Napoleonic Wars. Crowe is Captain "Lucky" Jack Aubrey, renowned as a fighting captain in the British Navy, and Bettany is ship's doctor Stephen Maturin. Their ship, the H.M.S. Surprise, is suddenly attacked by a superior enemy. With the Surprise badly damaged and much of his crew injured, Aubrey is torn between duty and friendship as he pursues a high-stakes chase across two oceans, to intercept and capture his foe. It's a mission that can make his reputation – or destroy Lucky Jack and his crew. (20th Century Fox)
| GENRE(S): |
Action
|
Adventure
|
Drama
|
War
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Peter Weir
John Collee
Patrick O'Brian (novels)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Peter Weir
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: April 20, 2004
Video: April 20, 2004
Theatrical: November 14, 2003
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
139 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
Received 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director (Peter Weir). Also received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for Best Picture of 2003, and included on the AFI's list of ten best films of 2003.
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Time
Richard Corliss
Master and Commander is to movies what Russell Crowe is to acting. With subtlety and power, it explores the complexities of men at war, even with themselves. It puts the passion into action, and the thrill into thought.
100
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Rare proof that a gigantic production in contemporary Hollywood can possess a distinctive personality and its own approach to storytelling, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World proves as bracing as a stiff wind on the open sea.
100
Dallas Observer
Gregory Weinkauf
One of this year's best films--a classic, even, like a C.S. Forester "Hornblower" story on steroids.
100
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
As magnificent as a high-masted 19th-century British warship, as explosive as a Napoleonic-era ocean battle seen above the cannon's mouth... probably the best movie of its kind ever made.
100
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
Stupendously entertaining.
100
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
This is a rip-roaring adventure combining edge-of-your-seat battle scenes with vivid historical details and more fascinating characters than most action movies dream of. Add heartfelt acting and Russell Boyd's atmospheric camera work, and you have the adventure movie of the year.
100
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Magnificent and heartfelt.
100
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Just as Aubrey's authority springs from skill and knowledge, so does the film's power. They don't make movies like this any more because few people know how to make them.
100
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Like the work of David Lean, it achieves the epic without losing sight of the human, and to see it is to be reminded of the way great action movies can rouse and exhilarate us, can affirm life instead of simply dramatizing its destruction.
100
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
When it comes to the oft-doomed genre of seafaring adventure, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is a spectacular throwback and a great leap forward.
100
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Isn't just a fabulous seagoing spectacle. It's one for the ages.
91
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
It's a wonderfully crafted work, handsome, lively, stirring and utterly convincing in its depiction of the perils and thrills of sea life. But I'm not sure that my personal enthusiasm for it will translate entirely for viewers whose favorite movie about the high seas is, for perfectly good reasons, "Pirates of the Caribbean."
91
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
A story in full billow; it sails through stretches of bloody battle, anxious waiting, wine-soaked relaxation, and marvelous scientific discoveries by the remarkable Maturin (Paul Bettany, well matched again with his ''A Beautiful Mind'' costar).
90
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Few actors can be as convincing as leaders of men, and to see Crowe as Capt. Jack Aubrey in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is to see a consummate performer doing what he does best.
90
The Hollywood Reporter
Michael Rechtshaffen
The epic adventure, set during the Napoleonic Wars, boasts at least two artists at the top of their respective games -- namely filmmaker Peter Weir and actor Russell Crowe.
90
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
On a production of this magnitude, few actors have the presence to assert themselves above the cacophony, but Crowe carries the film with the rare combination of charisma and brute masculinity that has made him a star.
90
Slate
David Edelstein
Master and Commander hooks you from its nifty opening salvo to its nifty closing punch line.
88
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
The opening 15 minutes of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World are so well crafted that they restore your faith in commercial cinema.
88
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
As gorgeous and gripping as it is faithful to the spirit of Patrick O'Brian's celebrated series of historical novels.
88
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
A thoughtful, rousing and beautifully crafted epic.
88
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
An intimate epic of infinite grace.
88
USA Today
Mike Clark
And novel insights notwithstanding, this is a plain old good movie, too.
88
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Crowe -- fierce, funny and every inch the hero -- gives a blazing star performance.
88
Premiere
Jason Matloff
Weir consistently proves that he can take any kind of material and adeptly make it his own.
83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
The music, art direction and camerawork blend together with an integrity and scope that's wonderfully exhilarating. Every frame seems to communicate the grandeur, power and fatal pull of the sea.
78
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
A humanistic adventure film that's both rich with characterization and concussive cannon bursts, Master and Commander is, surprisingly, some of the best work either Crowe or Weir have ever done.
75
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
What makes Master and Commander so bracing and transporting -- what makes the movie feel unlike any adventure film you've seen before -- is the precise detail and care with which Weir places us aboard the HMS Surprise.
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
In this journey, [Crowe] wears the uniform, the accent and the derring-do with consummate panache. Have him strike a muscular pose on the ship's prow, which Weir does more than once, and the manly sight puts that wussy DiCaprio to titanic shame.
75
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
They've made a thrilling traditional nautical picture from untraditional books.
75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
For those with any interest in 18th and 19th century seafaring or naval warfare, this is a must-see motion picture. For others, it's an enlightening and entertaining experience.
70
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
What the novels leave us with, and what emerges more fitfully from this film, as if in shafts of sunlight, is the growing realization that, although our existence is indisputably safer, softer, cleaner, and more dependable than the lives led by Captain Aubrey and his men, theirs were in some immeasurable way better. [17 November 2003, p. 172]
70
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
The director of "Gallipoli" and "The Year of Living Dangerously" has muffled the rage and darkness of his best work in favor of an antiquated pleasingness. Master and Commander is a too-comfy classic.
70
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
Persuasively re-creates the experience of sailing aboard a British man-o'-war during the Napoleonic era, but its story never attains comparable grandeur.
70
Film Threat
Chris Barsanti
The best boy’s adventure of the year.
60
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
With the exception of a brief sequence on the Galapagos Islands, where Maturin briefly indulges in some pre-Darwinian study of its unique ecosystem, the entire film takes place aboard the ship, and Weir's greatest accomplishment may be that it never feels claustrophobic.
60
Empire
Colin Kennedy
Oak solid and unsinkable, Master And Commander is old-fashioned entertainment crafted with considerable care; but compared to "Pirates Of The Caribbean's" pleasure cruise, this voyage is choppy and difficult without ever troubling deeper waters.
60
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
Though there is plenty of action, particularly at the start and at the end with two blasting sea battles, much of the film is not sufficiently interesting.
60
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
This is an exercise in civility -- a tasteful "Boy's Life" adventure with plenty of boys aboard to express their appreciation.
50
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
It is a dull and boring film, pretty as a Turner landscape and as sweetly becalmed as the glassy Sargasso Sea in which the men of the unfortunately named “Surprise” find themselves trapped for what felt, to me at least, like weeks on end.
50
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
For all the movie's coarse grandeur -- for all the blood in its battle scenes and the grim historical accuracy of its depiction of antediluvian medical procedures -- the story of Master and Commander feels like something intended not for adults but for children.
40
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
Suffers from what might be called colonitis. It comprises too many equal parts, and they tangle each other up. Everything is important, which comes to mean that nothing is important.
20
Film Threat
Phil Hall
It seems as if every possible cliche and story twist from any seafaring picture of the past 80 years made its way into this flick.
 The average user rating for this movie is 5.5 (out of 10) based on 384 User Votes
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