Details

Movie Poster
Title
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Director
Peter Weir
Cast
Rusell Crowe, Paul Bettany, Richard McCabe, Max Pirkis, Chris Larkin
Length
139 min.
Released
2003

Review

Peter Weir gets a lot of lip-service as a good director. People are always telling me how much they like Peter Weir, and how different he is from most Hollywood directors. Well, he is more deserving of this praise than is Gus Van Sant (but remember, Van Sant did Good Will Hunting and that shot-by-shot remake of Psycho). Really, he is a good judge of source material, and an adequate director to boot. This is a perfectly serviceable naval period movie, if a little generic and wholly uninvolving emotionally (not because it doesn't try, or because "its not that kind of movie" or anything, we just don't really care).

This isn't one of the five best movies of the year, but I don't begrudge it its Best Picture nomination. It is, after all, serviceable (see previous paragraph). Serviceable in a sea of mediocre. Yes, Mrs. Weir, your son's a real artist now.

Rating
4/8
Reviewer
Pat Jackson
Published