2. Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World
Peter Weir has demonstrated his eye for period detail on more than one occasion - his early film Picnic at Hanging Rock evoked turn of the century Australia through evocative dialogue and costume design, while his most recent effort, The Way Back, takes the viewer into a Soviet gulag then out into the surrounding wilds as war implicitly wages in the regions beyond. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World takes striving for period authenticity one step further than most movies have ever achieved. Adapted from a mixture of Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey-Marturin series of books, Master and Commander follows Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe), Captain of the HMS Surprise, who is ordered to pursue the French privateer Acheron during the Napoleonic Wars. Along with his crew, he is accompanied by Dr. Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany), an enthusiastic, intelligent man keen to make a detailed study of the Galapagos islands. Despite the fact that the Acheron is substantially larger than the HMS Surprise, Aubrey doggedly pursues it across the oceans, driven by a zeal well beyond his remit as Captain. The cast of Master and Commander reportedly trained in naval matters for some time before filming started, and the efforts certainly paid off, with a genuine sense of time and place permeating the film from start to finish. Crowe and Bettany also deliver fine performances, but it is really the action and general atmosphere which steal the show, not least the tense game of cat and mouse played deep inside a bank of thick fog. It's a shame that this is the first in a franchise which wasn't to be, although Crowe has recently started a twitter appeal urging fans to contact Fox if they want to see a sequel.
