Despite the unwieldy title, this film is an unexpected pleasure – an actor's film, which is a rare thing nowadays in Hollywood. It's certainly not an action film – there are only two major sequences and they bookend the movie – but instead it focuses on characters as they develop through action and reaction. As such it's a surprisingly mature piece of work, featuring some excellent performances from the likes in particular of Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany, playing the ship's captain and doctor respectively. There's no showiness here, just strong, subtle work, and it's hard to choose who gives the best performance between the two of them because they're both great.
This is an adaptation of a novel by Patrick O'Brian, which I haven't read as yet, although I believe it's a loose version of the story. Whatever the origins, it looks great, with often breathtaking shots of scenery – the Galapagos Islands, for instance. The ships are models for the most part, yet it's impossible to tell this, as the effects are very good indeed. I really liked the strong undercurrent of humour running through the film – such as the "lesser of two weevils" joke – and the surprisingly touching moments of humanity, like the boy who loses an arm and yet goes on to become a hero.
What happens on screen might be familiar – there's the usual catalogue of ship-bound perils like droughts, deserted islands, wrecks, storms, cannon battles and a particularly well-handled "Jonah" – but this is about a hundred times better than PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN which came out around the same time. It's no surprise that the latter production, a bloated Disney cartoon, was the more successful of the two and the one that went on to spawn sequels...
This is an adaptation of a novel by Patrick O'Brian, which I haven't read as yet, although I believe it's a loose version of the story. Whatever the origins, it looks great, with often breathtaking shots of scenery – the Galapagos Islands, for instance. The ships are models for the most part, yet it's impossible to tell this, as the effects are very good indeed. I really liked the strong undercurrent of humour running through the film – such as the "lesser of two weevils" joke – and the surprisingly touching moments of humanity, like the boy who loses an arm and yet goes on to become a hero.
What happens on screen might be familiar – there's the usual catalogue of ship-bound perils like droughts, deserted islands, wrecks, storms, cannon battles and a particularly well-handled "Jonah" – but this is about a hundred times better than PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN which came out around the same time. It's no surprise that the latter production, a bloated Disney cartoon, was the more successful of the two and the one that went on to spawn sequels...