Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com! Still pluggin' away at these Best Pic nominees...
Today we're heading back to the early aughts, for a 2003 nominee based on a series of popular novels by Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, directed by Peter Weir. Part swashbuckling, seafaring adventure story, part intimate character study, part buddy movie, M&C stars Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey, captain of the Napoleonic warship HMS Surprise, and Paul Bettany as Stephen Maturin, the ship's surgeon and Jack's close friend. Surprise's mission is to track and destroy a French vessel called Acheron before it can establish control of South American waters and expand Napoleon's footprint in the region.
The film kicks off with an intense battle sequence, as the larger, faster, more heavily armed Acheron ambushes Surprise, inflicting heavy casualties and much damage. Surprise escapes into a patch of fog, and Aubrey's crew must perform repairs on the fly to keep the ship afloat. A second attack (this time at night) is thwarted by use of a makeshift decoy which leads Acheron off Surprise's tail.
The action sequences, shot at immersive, close range, help inform us about the characters, their ability to rise to the occasion, their wartime acumen, and their bravery under pressure. We get a real sense of the battle strategies employed by Aubrey in particular. Realizing Acheron has not only superior firepower but a greater range, it's clear to the captain that a straightforward fight is a fool's errand. Aubrey is forced to think outside the box to stand a chance of survival, and his third-act gambit is deviously clever.
In between the carnage though are sequences of surprising quiet. Aubrey and Maturin share a great mutual admiration but clash on the priorities of the mission. A stop in the Galapagos islands offers the doctor a unique opportunity to catalog and study undiscovered animal species, but must be put on hold when they learn of Acheron's close proximity. For Aubrey nothing is more important than defeating his enemy, for Maturin the potential advances in science outweigh the military mission.
Both men take a young midshipman named William (Max Pirkis) under their wing. After William loses an arm in the first attack Aubrey mentors him in the art of command, while Maturin shares his knowledge of the natural world. Under their combined tutelage William becomes one of the most well-rounded hands on the ship, and his arc gets third billing.
Watching this film I couldn't help being reminded of Star Trek. Aubrey is a tough but charismatic leader who isn't afraid to take chances and think unconventionally, a la James Kirk. Maturin is an accomplished doctor and trusted friend who seems oddly out of place on a warship, like Leonard McCoy. Their friendship and conflicting ideals serve as one of the main story threads, and the execution of the battle scenes would've been right at home in the 23rd century, albeit with some technological updates and a change of venue. Swap out the night and fog for the Mutara Nebula for example, and you find yourself in the climax of The Wrath of Khan. I wonder how much O'Brian (and Weir for that matter) was influenced by Roddenberry.
Overall Master and Commander is a fine film, a nice balance of intense action-adventure and human themes. The one mission objective surprisingly spans the entire film, which I found refreshing. Usually movies like this tend to be episodic in structure, but the mission to hunt and defeat Acheron is given enough weight and scope to warrant two-plus hours of screen time. The two lead performances admirably carry the dramatic meat, while a handful of supporting turns from a cast of mostly unknowns adds some color to the background.
I give the film ***1/2 out of ****.
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