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Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
20th Century Fox Film Corporation

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 81 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
5.5 out of 10
based on 42 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 380 votes
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Rate this movie

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.

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...

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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
100
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
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.
Read Full Review
100
The New York Times Dana Stevens
Stupendously entertaining.
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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.
Read Full Review
100
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Magnificent and heartfelt.
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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.
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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.
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100
Washington Post Desson Thomson
Isn't just a fabulous seagoing spectacle. It's one for the ages.
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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."
Read Full Review
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).
Read Full Review
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.
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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.
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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.
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90
Slate David Edelstein
Master and Commander hooks you from its nifty opening salvo to its nifty closing punch line.
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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.
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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.
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88
New York Post Lou Lumenick
A thoughtful, rousing and beautifully crafted epic.
Read Full Review
88
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
An intimate epic of infinite grace.
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88
USA Today Mike Clark
And novel insights notwithstanding, this is a plain old good movie, too.
Read Full Review
88
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Crowe -- fierce, funny and every inch the hero -- gives a blazing star performance.
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88
Premiere Jason Matloff
Weir consistently proves that he can take any kind of material and adeptly make it his own.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
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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.
Read Full Review
75
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
They've made a thrilling traditional nautical picture from untraditional books.
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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.
Read Full Review
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.
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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.
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70
Film Threat Chris Barsanti
The best boy’s adventure of the year.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
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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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
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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.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 5.5 (out of 10) based on 380 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

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!

Greg S. gave it a10:
Excellent acting, cinematography, and superb atmosphere. Does an excellent job of putting you right on the ship and surrounding you with the sights and sounds of a sea battle. This is not an action movie for those with short attention spans, it is an adventure movie in the true meaning of the word.

Greg S. gave it a10:
Excellent acting, cinematography, and superb atmosphere. Does an excellent job of putting you right on the ship and surrounding you with the sights and sounds of a sea battle. This is not an action movie for those with short attention spans, it is an adventure movie in the true meaning of the word.

George T. gave it a10:
Very good and intelligent movie, but not for those with 21st century attention spans that need something new blowing up every scene. Its commendable that this movie did not feel the need to resort to senseless violence throughout in order to please its viewers. Its just as historically accurate as the books, and just as a note to all the people that seem to be complaining about how "theres no way they'd carry an extra mast," if you knew anything about history you'd know that they DID carry extra masts and timber, and that it was kept below deck so that it would not be damaged. Think people.

Jeremy E. gave it a4:
wow! History, Sailing, Pointless Fights, and, best of all Boredom! this film has it all. enough to make me fall asleep.

HB gave it a7:
Good movie, if you like sailing and history. There is not much happening for the city-dweller.

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