Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World [Blu-ray] [2003]

Yes, even that strange, disparate group of people who are incapable of talking about anything when they meet other than weevils, soused pig's face and tincture of laudanum, even they love this film. I should know, I'm one of them and most of the people I know are too.

Having seen a couple of excerpts of Crowe as Aubrey, I was absolutely dreading this movie but was totally enthralled from the outset. In fact, it wasn't until near the end of the movie when Aubrey & Maturin were walking on deck next to each other that I noticed that Paul Bettany is almost a foot taller than Russell Crowe (stilts for Crowe were in order for that shot).

It's not a word-for-word rendering of the novel onto film by any stretch of the imagination (nor should it have been) but it absolutely captures the spirit of the books and conveys life aboard the Surprise brilliantly. The detail is breath-taking from the ship itself to the behaviour of the crew and on to the wonderful storm and battle action scenes.

To give you an idea of just how pedantic I was being, I was absolutley delighted to see Maturin - like the good Catholic that he is - stopping short of the line "For thine is the kingdom..." during the Lord's Prayer near the end of the film (yes, I know it's sad to actually expend mental energy on such minutiae but, clearly, someone else did too).

My only disappointment was that no allusions were made to Maturin's secret life as an intelligence agent but I guess there's a limit to how much character exposition one can expect in, what I hope, is the first in a series of films. However, other aspects of his character - as Aubrey's best friend, as a great physician and as a fanatical naturalist - are depicted to great effect and humour.

From the outset, I forgot that it was Russell Crowe (so all credit to him) and thoroughly enjoyed his depiction of Aubrey and, obviously, David Threlfall was born to play Preserved Killick (more of him in the next film, I hope). The casting was, in fact, faultless except for one thing: the actor playing Barrett Bonden - a role for a huge, burly, pigtailed pugilist - was given to a rather small hobbit.

Far Side of the World is destined to become a cinema classic as well as a much-cherished DVD in my collection.

Like all O'Brian fans I was eager for this film to appear at the cinema, but was half expecting to be disappointed, as so easily happens when books are adapted for the screen. But I need not have worried. Every care has been taken to keep to the spirit of the books, although not the letter, and the attention to detail is astonishing.

The story itself is very simple. Jack Aubrey's ship Surprise is attacked by a much more powerful ship - the French privateer Acheron - in fog off the coast of Brazil. The ship's company manages to rescue the ship by towing her deeper into the fog, and the rest of the film involves the Surprise chasing the Acheron round the Horn to get her revenge. So, very much a "blokish" film, with no romantic interest (in fact the only time women appear is when some Brazilian boats pull out to trade with the ship, and even then they don't speak). This won't be to everybody's taste, and you will probably get the most out of it if you love the sea and sailing ships.

Put so baldly, the film doesn't seem to have much to recommend it, but its success resides in four things. Firstly the social relations on board ship, especially the friendship between Captain Aubrey and the ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin, which is as central here as it is in the books. Secondly, fine acting by the whole cast. Thirdly the astounding attention to detail. And fourthly the delight in discovering natural wonders.

And for O'Brian devotees, how does it stack up? Well, the story is very much a pick and mix of scenes and events from books throughout the series. The novel The Far Side of the World involves a chase with a US Navy ship. In the film it has been quietly substituted by a French one, presumably because nobody in the US would want to watch a film about one of their ships being knocked about by a British one. In fact, the only real connection between book and film as far as the story goes is that it involves a chase around the Horn and up to the Galapagos.

Tom Pullings is pretty faithful to the novels, Mr Allen the sailing master is excellent, and other characters are faithfully reproduced, although one or two come to rather unexpected ends. Preserved Killick and Joe Plaice could have stepped straight out of the pages, they are so real. The only two exceptions are Bonden and Jack Aubrey. Bonden looks like a 15 year old boy, rather than the hulking tattooed pig-tailed man of war's man I was expecting. Not that he's in any way bad, but just wrong for the part. And Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey was probably the best choice for a very difficult character to portray. In the leadership role he is very good indeed. In fact I can think of nobody who could play the part better. But when not fighting an enemy or a storm, Aubrey is a rather clumsy, ham-fisted, unintentionally funny character with his mixed aphorisms, etc., and here Crowe is not so good. He can't really do humour, and his English accent doesn't sound very different from his Australian/NZ one. But I can think of no actor in the world who could have combined two such very differing sides of Jack's personality.

The "great value" in the review title refers to the extras. They are quite simply the best I have ever seen in a DVD, and when you see the lengths to which Peter Weir went in order to remain faithful to the books and the times you will be amazed. For anybody who loves sailing, The Hundred Days "making of" film is worth five stars on its own.

It merits every one of its five stars, but you are more likely to enjoy it if you have a passion for the sea and ships.

The start of this film is highly unusual, there is no theme music and no real introduction to the characters, we get to know them gradually throughout the film. At first with shots of sailing ships in an empty sea and mundane activity on board the ship, you wonder if it is going to be really slow getting started. After five minutes or so you realise that this is a sort of calm before the storm. There is a giant sea battle with ships being blasted by cannon and men being hideously injured. I have to point out, though, that this is extremely well done, and the hideous injuries are not seen in their full gory detail. Although there is a lot of realistic battles and fighting at different points in the film, there is no gratuitous scenes of people being blown to pieces, blood and guts flying everywhere, although we are under no illusions that that is what is happening. As one of the main characters is the ship's surgeon we see him performing operations (one on himself - I don't know how possible that is?) and instead of showing the blood and gore we see the un-anaesthetised patients' pain in their faces. Which is what makes the film so enjoyable - well obviously not the pain, but the way that it requires actors to act rather than just run around in front of blue screens waving big guns. There are special effects to make the sea battles appear more realistic, but they are kept to a minimum and it is the acting that shines through.

I usually don't expect to enjoy films that I've read the book of, and to be fair it is Master and Commander that I've read, not The Far side of the World which is the one that the film is most heavily based on. Nevertheless I was extremely pleasantly surprised to find that I really was able to enjoy this film. The characters are well drawn and as I'm not a huge Russell Crowe fan I was surprised just how good he was as Jack Aubrey, and Paul Bettany is equally excellent as Stephen Maturin. The supporting cast include many fine British actors. It may be a "war film" in some senses, but it goes much further, it is realistic rather than swashbuckling and intelligent rather than being full of action for action's sake.

The realism of life on a naval vessel 200 years ago combined with the excellence of the acting is what makes me give this film 5 stars.