Master and Commander

Last night I finally saw Master and Commander. I should know by now that nine times out of ten, when mainstream film critics use the word "intelligent" to describe a film, it isn't. This was supposed to be a gentleman's action flick with character development and deep thoughts, instead it featured a whole slew of nautical stereotypes already covered recently and in more depth by the Horatio Hornblower franchise and Russell Crowe as the captain and Paul Bettany as the doctor spouting a whole heck of a lot of predictable "philosophical" dialogue about order, duty, and tyranny. Gee, guess which one thinks that military order is tyrannical. To the film's credit though, Crowe almost looked like he could actually play the violin. The bow hand is tricky, so I'm willing to forgive.

I watched the opening and closing fight scenes twice in order not to feel cheated by the long, boring, and not particularly well-done middle section. Sigh. It's going to be a while before I can summon up the courage to go see either Troy or King Arthur. Perhaps I'll be forced to crack open a "can of courage" in order to make it to the movie theater. -Zh.