Oscars 2003: If We Picked the Winners (Best Picture 2003)

4. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World If you had never seen a trailer of the film, if you didn't know any of the actors involved, and if you had no idea what the story of the film was about, you would still have everything you ever needed to know about the movie simply from its title, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Based on the novels by Patrick O'Brian, this Peter Weir film follows one British captain's determined chase of a French vessel around South America during the Napoleonic Wars. In reality, it's an excuse for Russell Crowe to once again yell at a bunch of men and reconfirm his ultimate alpha-male status, no matter how frilly his costume in the film appears. At one point, Russell Crowe was one of the my favorite actors in the business, and while I still think he is a talented actor, this was the first role where I began to feel uneasy about the trajectory of his career. While he was truly mesmerizing in Gladiator, his role in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World was one, of what would turn out to be many, Maximus-redux performances. Meanwhile, from director Peter Weir's side of things, it appears he was intent on making a "Captain Blood 2" of sorts, or in other words, a modern day update to the Errol Flynn swashbucklers of the 1930's. Not being particularly fond of these movies, it left me a little numb to say the least, but if old-school action is your thing, you're likely to disagree. Even fans of the genre though will notice the film does have some blemishes. One personal pet peeve of mine is films that have meaningless inclusions of real historical figures, and while they give him a different a name, Paul Bettany's character in the film is very obviously suppose to be Charles Darwin. While Bettany actually does a good job portraying the character, there is just no need for his character in the first place, other than to say, "Look, it's a Charles Darwin character, that makes us historical." It feels like an annoying nudge in the ribs from some historical purist who compulsively has to point out, "Huh, huh, it's the early 1800's just in case you didn't know". Yeah, I sort of guessed that fact when I noticed everyone is sailing around in boats instead of riding cars and flying planes. Then of course the film carries with it all the problems that these sort of epic's run into, but I think I detailed that well enough in the opening of the article, so I will leave it be. At the time, I really wanted to like this film, but even at that early stage of the game, the tropes of the genre were beginning to wear thin.