Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

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.

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.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

One of this year's best films--a classic, even, like a C.S. Forester "Hornblower" story on steroids.

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.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Stupendously entertaining.

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.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Magnificent and heartfelt.

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.

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.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Isn't just a fabulous seagoing spectacle. It's one for the ages.

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."

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).

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.

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.

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.

Slate David Edelstein

Master and Commander hooks you from its nifty opening salvo to its nifty closing punch line.

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.

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.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A thoughtful, rousing and beautifully crafted epic.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

An intimate epic of infinite grace.

USA Today Mike Clark

And novel insights notwithstanding, this is a plain old good movie, too.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Crowe -- fierce, funny and every inch the hero -- gives a blazing star performance.

Premiere Jason Matloff

Weir consistently proves that he can take any kind of material and adeptly make it his own.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

They've made a thrilling traditional nautical picture from untraditional books.

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.

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.

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.

Film Threat Chris Barsanti

The best boy’s adventure of the year.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.