Master and Commander: The Far Side Of The World: Critic Reviews

This apt and sensitive introduction to O'Brian's ripping maritime tales manages to make a period-piece saga feel modern -- capturing something timeless in the characters of all men.

Master and Commander hums with humor, passion and life.

A plain old good movie.

Seems fated to disappoint everyone except the slick magazines that put it on their covers.

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

Master and Commander doesn't play fast and loose with the genre, like this summer's Pirates of the Caribbean, and Crowe certainly doesn't mince around like Johnny Depp.

Crowe delivers a star performance in his trademark incarnation as the thoughtful roughneck.

Even if you can't tell a mizzenmast from a gangplank, Master and Commander will take your breath away.

The special effects and battle scenes are extraordinary.

Mr. Weir will possibly get his fifth nomination for Oscar gold, but everybody -- from costume designer Wendy Stites to Australians Iva Davies, Richard Tognetti and Christopher Gordon, who composed the classic-pop score -- deserves three cheers.

The movie is like one of those ships in a bottle -- lovely and painstaking, as grand as it is unimportant.

It never achieves the visual elegance or majesty that a David Lean might have provided. The story line isn't the freshest. And yet the film is satisfying all the same.

Master and Commander is grand and glorious, and touching in its attention to its characters.

Probably the best movie of its kind ever made.

An intimate epic of infinite grace.

A swashbuckling epic for grownups.

Fascinating at times, exciting and harrowing at others, and always visually arresting.

If you're just dying to see Master and Commander, check in for the first 20 minutes, take a leisurely stroll and then return for the finale.

To put it plainly, two ships playing tag across the seas is no longer my idea of whoopee, especially at a time when grown-ups are popping up all over the screen with uncensored stories of the eternal affinities and all their variations.

If this is the stuff that rings the bell on your macho meter, go with my blessing.

Rare proof that a gigantic production in contemporary Hollywood can possess a distinctive personality, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World proves as bracing as a stiff wind on the open sea.

Proof that Hollywood can make a smart $150 million movie that doesn't insult the audience's intelligence.

A thrilling, sweeping, visually stunning Napoleonic War adventure set on the high seas.

Considering how cinema-unfriendly O'Brian was - the author rarely went to the movies, and had to be persuaded to release the film rights -- Master & Commander manages to loosen the shackles of its dry pages.

Beautifully directed and acted, sumptuously costumed and rigged, with no less a man than Russell Crowe filling out the Captain's britches, this is mythmaking all dressed up and demanding a snappy salute -- heck, it's a Boy's Own adventure to die for.