Master and Commander: Far Side of the World (2003)

Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany

If you wanted to read a book, would you pick it up and start reading in the middle?? No. That’s what Master and Commander feels like. We pick up the story in time to see this battle between 2 ships. No build up to the fight. No character development. We know we are supposed to care about Russell Crowe because he is the star of the movie and you don’t typically kill the star in the first 10 minutes. I was a good 48 minutes into the movie before I finally asked my wife “What the hell is going on??” And she didn’t have a good answer.

In addition to having zero character development, you can only understand about every 3rd word uttered by the actors. That made for an enjoyable evening of the “What did he say?” game at the Beezer home.

And is it just me or does Russell Crowe seem to play the same character in every movie he’s in?? Don’t get me wrong, he’s not as bad as George Clooney or Katie Holmes, but it seems like you can lift his character out of this movie and drop it into any of his other movies and it’d be hard to tell a difference.

Despite not knowing what was going on, or why I should care about the people that were dying, the part of the movie that drove me absolutely crazy was the guy who had part of his brain scooped out with a spoon. He was making more coherent sentences than the rest of the cast. How is this possible?? He had the procedure done on the deck of a boat while at sea, with the most rudimentary of tools (a SPOON), and yet is able to function as normal. Does this not bother anyone else?? What kind of healing powers does this man posses?? Were all doctors this good in the 1700’s?? Did his HMO cover the procedure??

I think one sentence from my wife sums up this movie perfectly:

“I may die of boredom at any moment.”