“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” is the kind of rousing movie epic that makes you glad you went to the theater and leaves you hungry for more. Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany, who you might remember as Crowe’s imaginary roommate in “A Beautiful Mind,” come together again for a character study so penetrating you wonder that Hollywood still remembers how to do it in an age of soulless, computer-generated effects.
In this action-adventure, director Peter Weir is careful to subordinate the action sequences to the human characters themselves, who are as different and fascinating as, well, human characters tend to be. Weir has refused to reduce them to the two-dimensional functionaries so characteristic of action blockbusters like “Bad Boys II” or “The Matrix Revolutions.”
In Weir’s film, the action serves to illuminate the inner life of the men on board the HMS Surprise, a British ship locked in a deadly cat-and-mouse combat with a larger and more powerful French vessel, the Acheron. The battle scenes, all of which take place at sea between the two ships, are clearly designed to show the bravery or cowardice or fierceness of the men involved. One battle sequence has Crowe, who plays Capt. Jack Aubrey of the Surprise, rousing his men in a stirring speech about courage, loyalty and sacrifice. It is an example of leadership at its best, and the result is that the “men” — many of whom are actually boys impressed into the service — are ready to follow their captain into anything.
Fortunately, Aubrey is as intelligent and practical as he is brave, and thus does not lead his men into senseless slaughter. What drives the movie’s character study is the juxtaposition of Aubrey’s tough realism with the scientific and peaceful passions of his good friend, Stephen Maturin, who is the ship’s doctor but also serves as confidant and sounding board to Aubrey. Both men are similarly well educated, but they are a study in contrasts.
Their differing characters come into conflict at key decision-making moments, and it is those moments that define the two. One scene has Maturin arguing for a scientific stop in the Galapagos Islands which Aubrey sacrifices to the overriding duty of pursuing the Acheron. That scene in particular shows that the two men have much in common, so much that they actually complement each other.
The scenes of early 19th-century ship life are probably the best ever filmed. The hardships faced by sailors who oftentimes served against their will for months upon months of back-breaking labor, all for the reward of risking their lives and maybe getting an extra ration of grog, are depicted in great detail. Yet despite the difficulties, the men seem to be content with their lot. In the end, “Master and Commander” is about the mysterious power human beings have over one another. With Jack Aubrey leading the way, who wouldn’t be inspired to risk one’s life?