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Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
EMAILPRINT20th Century Fox Film Corporation

Universal acclaim
Based on 42 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 393 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Action | Adventure | Drama | War
Written by:
Peter Weir
John Collee
Patrick O'Brian (novels)
Directed by: Peter Weir
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 14, 2003
DVD: April 20, 2004
Running Time: 139 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
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)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Dead Poets Society Gallipoli Green Card The Last Wave The Mosquito Coast The Truman Show The Year of Living Dangerously Witness
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
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...
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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf
One of this year's best films--a classic, even, like a C.S. Forester "Hornblower" story on steroids.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Isn't just a fabulous seagoing spectacle. It's one for the ages.
Read Full Review >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."
Read Full Review >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).
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
Master and Commander hooks you from its nifty opening salvo to its nifty closing punch line.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
And novel insights notwithstanding, this is a plain old good movie, too.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Crowe -- fierce, funny and every inch the hero -- gives a blazing star performance.
Read Full Review >Premiere Jason Matloff
Weir consistently proves that he can take any kind of material and adeptly make it his own.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
They've made a thrilling traditional nautical picture from untraditional books.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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]
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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.6 (out of 10) based on 393 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
C K. gave it a10:
Whoever found this movie boring and/or bad seriously needs to reconsider their thoughts; If you believe this is an action film, it's really not. It's just nothing short of fantastic. And the soundtrack? Absolutely gorgeous.
Ben A. gave it a5:
What a bloody boring film! Over 2 hours of crap, with a couple of short fights. The fights were confusing, too; I couldn't tell which ship was being hit, or who was killing who.
Ricky B. gave it a10:
If you believe this is an action film then you are missing the point. this movie is the study of a man. a man who must balance duty and desire with humanity and relationships. Delve into Cap'n Jack ane you will see that this is almost a chick flick.
[Anonymous] gave it a10:
Beautiful movie and plot that begins and concludes full circle. However it is definitely not one for the kids or those with short attention spans,
Brian S gave it a9:
People expecting Pirates of the Carribean will be disappointed. M&C is an enthralling, highly realistic depiction of the times and the people, the tactics, and the lives of sailors aboard an 1800s warship. The people saying the movie is "boring" need to come to grips with the fact that they will only ever like American action movies and leave more rewarding movies to people with the patience to appreciate genuine adventure and realism. I wonder if they also thought Das Boot was boring, as this was basically "Das Boot with sails" and I could hardly come up with a better compliment than that.
Jack V. gave it a2:
I have to agree with L.A. Weekly's and Jeremy E.'s comment about "Boredom". I have usually liked all the movies I've seen on at least one aspect, except for two movies, with this being one of them. This was one of the most boring movies I have ever seen. Unfortunately, I think the majority of the movie critics got it wrong this time. I'm confused as to why it was rated 100 so many times.
H. S. gave it a10:
Perfect Movie!
