Master and Commander is both quite good and a fun watch.

| May 16, 2024

Above all else, it’s a portrait of a complex but ultimately healthy male friendship. The kind where the captain and ship surgeon take breaks from their adventures to play classical music duets. (20th anniversary)

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Nov 17, 2023

The film depicts the indignities of a 19th-century life at sea, along with the horrors of the Napoleonic Wars. But the narrative rests on the bedrock of Aubrey and Maturin’s friendship.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 3, 2023

Weir wisely grounds the intense but wearying high seas adventure in the friendship between Aubrey and Paul Bettany as Dr. Stephen Maturin, the ship’s surgeon who tends to the many wounded.

| Aug 3, 2023

The attention to detail is mesmerizing, the action is thrilling, and Weir never lets you forget the stakes and the consequences for all the stalwart heroism.

| Jul 1, 2023

... As satisfying as an epic yarn as it is as an intimate study of male friendship and courage.

| May 8, 2023

We feel ourselves to be in good company with these men, and strangely jealous of their packed and salted lives.

| Jan 18, 2022

It seems the sea will keep churning and Jack Aubrey will be there to command his men to victory or a well earned death.

| Original Score: 92/100 | Aug 22, 2021

Despite the setting (a Royal Navy ship off the eastern coast of South America during the Napoleonic Wars) and the gore (blunt limb removal, exposed brains) the film is tender and poetic.

| Mar 30, 2021

I can say most assuredly that it has already earned its place among the pantheon of classic war films and indeed the greatest films of all time.

| Feb 6, 2020

There aren't too many films that can combine intelligence and thrills, but Master and Commander succeeds on both counts.

| Nov 15, 2019

Written by Weir and John Collee, this is a faithful adaptation of the O'Brian novels told with a well-paced, rousing exuberance and uncommon intelligence and humanity, richly detailed in both character and action.

| Nov 13, 2019

Marketed as a rollicking adventure at sea, "Master and Commander" instead is a disguised lesson in social history with just enough action sequences to make it palatable.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 30, 2019

Crowe and director Peter Weir have thrown the cliche overboard and replaced them with great storytelling. Run -- don't walk. I liked it so much i wanted to enlist.

| Original Score: A | May 23, 2016

an exciting film

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 12, 2016

So much fun to watch that the fact it's also quite ingenious and crafty can be surprisingly difficult to notice.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Jan 2, 2016

Intense battle scenes and a strong story of friendship.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 26, 2010

Peter Weir makes the Surprise a world to explore, not a splashy CGI simulation. Like a human body, the boat stays afloat through complex processes. A knockout mix of organic elegance, reflective drama and aggressive action on par with Sir David Lean.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 19, 2010

an expansive cinematic achievement that sits well against such adventure classics as Lawrence of Arabia, and is a sure bet for fans of ocean bound drama.

| Original Score: A- | May 12, 2009

A stupendous production, Master and Commander satisfies as richly as a book might, immersing us in a world of its people and its places.

| Oct 18, 2008